The Assassin
by NakiatheSilentOne
Summary: Sayaka is one of the newest exorcists at the Black Order, but used to be an assassin working under an akuma. Even before that, she wasn't even human, and had an interesting relationship with another exorcist. KandaxOC LavixLenalee First fic. Be kind pleas
1. Prologue and Part 1

Prologue: Fairy

**Prologue****: Fairy**

For the record, when you think of the exorcist Kanda Yuu, emotional does not come to mind. Austere, fierce, deadly…now _those_ are the kinds of words that pop into your head when you think about him. Most of the people who know Kanda will tell you that he isn't much of a people person. On first sight, you'd agree with them. But he is, obviously, a human being, and you know that all human beings feel each emotion at one point or another.

Anger, rage, spite, jealousy, fear, relief, confidence, cockiness, happiness, joy, love, lust…

Out of those emotions listed, Kanda only seems to show the first three. But the others are more than likely buried underneath everything else, deep inside of him, seemingly forgotten. But that theory was tested, and the test began with his two rookies, Sayo and Hoshino…

"Hey, are you listening?" Sayo jerked him.

"What?"

"I was asking you about NiSayo. You saw her that night, didn't you?"

Kanda groaned. "You're not going on about that woman again, are you?"

Hoshino took off his clawed gloves. "She's been talking about it ever since she disappeared."

Sayo ignored her brother. "I'm serious you guys. She was crying, right? You said you saw her cry when you were leaving, didn't you?"

"So?" Kanda replied, not really caring to remember that night.

"So, then you must've figured it out. I have. We shouldn't have just left her there—"

"Sayo, think about it for a second," he cut her off, "You almost got killed because of her, remember? She's not your fairy anymore."

She was about to say something, but then closed her mouth, her eyes saddening. Kanda looked at her for a second, then stood up and started walking towards the house, considering the matter over and done with. He stopped when he heard her mumble something to Hoshino.

"She tried to protect me. It's not like she wanted me to get hurt."

Hoshino whispered something in her ear, but Kanda couldn't hear it. He waved it off as nothing and proceeded inside the house. He didn't realize it, but NiSayo would be part of this great test.

_He's just mad because she turned out to be an accommodator._

It was true…NiSayo's human body, a body that had been grown for her, had somehow been created with an Innocence inside of it, so she ended up being a parasite-type accommodator. She didn't want to be a fairy anymore, but her reasons were unclear why she decided to be a human instead. All of this kept Sayo from sleeping that night.

_I wonder if she's okay…_

"I never knew how badly she was suffering," she whispered to herself guiltily.

"Don't make it sound like it's all your fault."

She turned at the sound of the voice beside her. There stood a woman with wavy black hair in a Chinese-style dress and red high heels. She looked dirty and beat up. Her hand was bandaged where Kanda had pierced it with his katana.

Sayo's face lit up. "NiSayo!" she exclaimed as softly as she could without waking Hoshino.

"You don't have to call me that anymore, either."

Sayo kept talking as if she didn't hear her. "Are you okay? Did Kanda hurt you? Did Hoshino? Did that guy with the weird-colored skin? Was he a Gost or something?"

The woman held up her hands. "Calm down, will you? I did get a little scuffed, but I'm fine. I never expected to come out of that unharmed. And as for Thrax, well…I really don't know what he is, other than a body-grower."

"He made you that body, then? You didn't steal it?"

"Of course not. Fairies don't possess people, dummy."

The girl smiled. "It's cool that you turned out to be an accommodator. That means we'll see you at the Black Order whenever Hoshino or I have a mission!"

To Sayo's surprise, the woman looked down at the ground sadly. "I'm…not so sure."

"Why not?"

When she didn't answer, Sayo thought about it, and then figured it out, as if it were obvious. "He won't let you go, will he? That guy…"

The woman nodded. "True…but he doesn't have to. I escaped. I cut my ties with him. I realized how stupid it was of me to trust him."

"What if he comes to take back that body?"

"He can't. I'm in here permanently. From now on, I'm one hundred percent human."

"But what if he comes back for you anyway? You _have_ to go to the Order! It's the only place you'll be safe!"

"Do I really deserve to be safe after what I did to you?"

There was a long silence after that question. The woman walked over to the window and stood in front of it, arms crossed, gazing at the night sky. Sayo climbed out of bed and stood behind her.

"It wasn't your fault that akuma attacked me. You tried to stop it, but Kanda wouldn't let you, that's all."

"No, that's not all. Sayo…I failed as your protector. I realized that, in my own selfish attempt to be free, I forgot about my promise to you."

The woman turned around again and got down on bended knee in front of Sayo. "I'm not fit to protect you anymore. I've failed you."

A tear rolled down her face and Sayo swiped it off with her finger. "But NiSayo, you don't have to be my protector anymore. We've both changed, don't you see?"

The woman blinked.

"So what if that old promise is broken? That just means we can make a new one."

Sayo flung herself at the woman and hugged her. "Promise me you'll become a great exorcist and make a good life for yourself. Live out your freedom to the fullest."

The girl felt the woman's body tremble as she struggled to hold back her flood of tears that had been brought forth. She stood and nodded, kissing Sayo's forehead and going back to the window.

"Oh yeah! One more thing. What should I call you now?"

"…My name is Sayaka."

**Part One****: Induction**

"Sayaka Mizune…" Chief Inspector Komui read the information aloud as he interviewed the new exorcist, "So it seems you have a pretty good handle on your Innocence's power?"

Sayaka nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good, that's a bonus. We usually have to train up our new exorcists, but you seem to be ahead of the game."

Section Leader Reever looked over Komui's shoulder at the information. "Wait a minute, Chief, are we sure she's classified as a parasite-type accommodator? Look at her weapons," he indicated Sayaka's sword and the kunai she had holstered around each thigh, "that seems tool-type to me."

Komui nodded. "I thought so too, but you see, her innocence allows her to make any weapon she chooses her anti-akuma weapon. The Innocence is in her hands."

Sayaka slipped a kunai out of her holster and held it up. Shutting her eyes, she activated her Innocence. The kunai began to glow with a pale green aura. Reever gaped at her.

"That's amazing."

Komui smiled. "Yes, and a unique innocence, to boot. Alright, Sayaka, your information will be added to our files. Lenalee will take you to see Hebraska and then show you to a room."

Lenalee smiled as she approached Sayaka. "Welcome to the Black Order."

Sayaka smiled back. "Thank you."

As the two girls walked out of Komui's office, Sayaka noticed that someone had been listening outside. Or rather…three someones.

Kanda, Sayo and Hoshino stood outside against the wall. Sayo was beaming.

"Hooray!" she shouted, running up and hugging Sayaka.

Hoshino gave her a small, somewhat sheepish smile. "Congrats."

"Thanks, you little suck up." Sayaka replied, using her favorite nickname for him.

Kanda said nothing, merely looked at her, arms crossed over his chest. Sayaka ignored him, and she followed Lenalee down another corridor. Once they were gone, Sayo kicked him.

"Why didn't you at least say 'congratulations'?" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

"I didn't feel like it." Kanda replied shortly, "So don't kick me."

Hoshino sighed, pulling his sister towards him. "Come on, Sayo, don't get so upset. Sayaka didn't exactly acknowledge his presence either, so let it go."

Kanda stood up. "Besides, I'm not exactly happy about her becoming an exorcist. I can't believe the Order would let her after all the trouble she's caused."

Sayo was about to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, she looked away sadly and twiddled her thumbs like she usually did when she was either nervous or keeping something to herself. Hoshino looked at her. For once, he actually didn't agree with Kanda on this one.

For the most part, Kanda didn't even see much of Sayaka after that day. He went on his assigned missions and she went on hers. If he ever did see her, he didn't acknowledge her, and she did the same. Things continued this way for a while, until one day, when Kanda was walking outside the castle…

"Hey, Kanda!"

He looked over his shoulder to see Sayaka coming towards him.

"What?"

"Did you do something to Sayo?"

"What are you talking about?"

She stopped a foot from him. "When she was leaving, she looked about ready to cry. Now tell me, what did you do?"

The dark haired exorcist turned all the way around to face her. "And what makes you think it was me that did anything? Why am I your first suspect?"

"Because it's usually you."

Kanda's eyes slanted. "She's just mad at me because I didn't congratulate you. I clearly expressed my thoughts on the matter, that's all. It's not my fault that she got upset over them."

Sayaka folded her arms across her chest. Her eyebrow rose. "'Clearly expressed your thoughts on the matter', huh? By 'the matter', you mean me becoming an exorcist, right?"

He nodded.

"Well then, why don't you tell me said thoughts?"

"Fine, if you're so eager to know," he replied, "Frankly…I don't know what the Order was thinking, making you a soldier of life. When they first got wind of you and the group you were with, they thought of you as big of a threat to us and everything we stand for as the akuma. Then as soon as they realize that your body had an Innocence fragment buried in it, they change their minds and think you're the biggest thing since sliced bread. I think that this is the stupidest decision the Order has made ever since I first joined. If it had been up to me, I would've never let you through the front gates of the castle."

Sayaka's fists clenched, but she made no move. "And you told Sayo all of this?"

"I did. And I think she's a fool for trusting you."

That did it. She pointed her finger at him as she spoke, trying to stay calm despite the bubbling anger inside of her, "Okay, look pal. You can bash me all you want, you can think of me as a mistake or anything that makes you feel big, but don't you dare take it out on Sayo."

Kanda didn't reply right away, just stared at her. Then he smirked. "Are you still trying to protect her?"

"…"

"I seem to recall you saying that you weren't her fairy anymore. Doesn't that mean that protecting her is no longer your job?"

"That's not the issue. You're making Sayo sad, and I don't like it. I owe her a lot, and I'm not gonna let some punk like you dampen that. I promised her."

"That's rich, a woman like you indebted to a young girl like her. What a fool you are—"

SWAK

Momentarily, Kanda's eyes lost focus as his head snapped violently to the side, pain in the reddening left side of his face.

"You're lucky my Innocence wasn't invoked," he heard Sayaka growl, "Otherwise, I would've made you into my own weapon. Don't you ever call me a fool again, you bastard!"

She stomped off towards the castle before Kanda could recompose himself. His hand lightly touched the reddened flesh. Should he be angry? No one had ever even _tried_ to strike him before. Instead of reacting, instead of running after her, he just watched until she faded into the approaching fog.

Normally, Kanda was rather neutral with girls, compared to how he was around other people. Some would even venture to say that he was quite _kind_ with them. But after what had just taken place…

Meanwhile, Sayaka had already reached her room and was now standing in front of her mirror, having a staring contest with her reflection. Why had she gotten so angry? It was understandable, Sayo was upset and she'd only tried to alleviate that…but to hit him like that?

"No," she whispered, "he was insulting me and Sayo both. He deserved it."

Pushing the frustrating situation out of her mind for a moment, she reached up and touched her hair, which had been put back into their puffy knots, tightly woven on the back of her head. She remembered when she'd first gotten them in.

Thrax had done it after he'd put her inside her body, the body he'd grown especially for her. It was almost like he was a child playing with a toy…

"_What are you, a hairstylist?" Sayaka groaned._

"_Hold still, I've almost got it."_

_One of the other men held a mirror up in front of her face. Thrax was standing behind her, his gnarly hands on her shoulders. She watched his lipless mouth twist itself into a smile._

"_They're cute…that makes you beautiful and dangerous all in one package."_

_He lowered his face so that it was right next to hers. "Don't you agree?"_

_Sayaka said nothing._

She had never said anything to that comment, no matter how many times he repeated it. Thrax would always refer to her as "cute" and "beautiful", as if it was making him feel better, rather than her. Usually it did. She hadn't understood it until that moment, but every time he'd done it, it made Sayaka feel wretched. She felt like she was being used by Thrax and his group of thugs. All the time, go get the Innocence and bring it here, as if she were one of the akuma she'd been destroying. And every time she brought one back to him, Thrax would smile that smile at her and say,

"Thank you, beautiful."

Now, she clenched her fists, bit her lip, and held back her urge to scream in rage. Instead, she yanked her hair out of their two knots, pulled a kunai out of her holster, and began attacking her hair, chopping off great lengths, all the time biting her lip until it turned red.

When her body had been grown, her hair had reached waist length, therefore it _had _to be dolled up like that, otherwise it got in her way. Finally, Sayaka gently lay the kunai down on the table and looked up at her handiwork. Her hair was now just above her shoulders.

"Looks like I'm not beautiful anymore, huh?" she sneered at her reflection.

"Combo C is ready!" Jerry called gaily from the window, pushing a tray of soba, tempura and water out to be received.

Kanda took it silently, without looking at the Order's cook, and proceeded to a table in the dining hall. As he walked past other tables, whispers from finders and other exorcists reached his ears. He took no notice of this, pretending they either weren't there or getting blasted to death by an akuma. Then he sat down across from Lavi.

"Hey Yuu, you've got something on your face," the redhead pointed at him, indicating the left side of his face.

Kanda's steely eyes looked at him. "No I don't."

"Yeah, you do." Lavi leaned across the table to get closer, "That red spot on your left cheek. What happened, someone throw a rock at you or something?"

"Did anyone die recently?" Kanda asked.

"What? No…"

"Then no."

Lavi sat back down, stuffing a biscuit into his mouth, shrugging. "Okay," he said after swallowing, "then how'd it get there?"

"That's not your business."

About to continue to prod the answer out of him, the redhead was caught off guard by someone coming into the hall. His face lit up. "Whoa, look at _that_ gorgeous piece of work!" he crooned.

Kanda casually looked over his shoulder to see what his fellow exorcist was referring to. His eyes widened, then slanted again in annoyance. "Oh, her."

"Isn't she that new recruit?"

"Yeah, though I can't imagine how."

Sayaka stood in front of Jerry's window, having just requested her food. Her back was facing them, but she could feel the people in the hall staring at her. She looked over her shoulder. Uneasiness settled in her stomach.

_Great,_ she thought, _now they're all staring. I hate that._

"Here you go, new recruit!"

"Oh, thank you very much."

She turned on her heel, tray in her hands, and started looking for an available place to sit. Every table was full of wide eyes from what she could see. The floor seemed more appealing.

Suddenly, shouting reached her. "Hey! Hey, over here!"

Lavi was standing on his seat, waving his arms back and forth like he was trying to fly. "Come over here, there's an empty space right here!"

Sayaka was about to take him up on the offer, seeing him as less of an embarrassment (despite what he was doing), but stopped when she saw who he was already sitting with. The redheaded exorcist came over to her.

"Come on, we won't bite." He smiled kindly at her.

"I'm not so sure," she replied.

Kanda was looking at her from the corner of his eye, a bored expression on his face. Lavi looked from him to Sayaka.

"Oh, you mean Yuu? He looks dangerous, but he won't do anything, believe me. He's not like that."

Sayaka looked puzzled. "Yuu?"

"Dammit Lavi, quit calling me that!" Kanda hissed, now looking directly at them.

Various people in the hall scurried to a table further away. They all knew that if someone said Kanda's first name, they were practically knocking on death's door.

But Lavi knew that Kanda wouldn't do anything around or to a girl, so he led Sayaka to their table and then sat back down in front of his food. Sayaka took a seat beside him, trying to hide a smile.

"I'm Lavi, by the way," he stuck out his hand.

"I'm Sayaka." She shook it.

"And this, as you might have guessed, is Yu—"

"Lavi…!"

"Alright, alright, this is Kanda."

Sayaka picked up her fork. "We're well met."

Kanda shoveled a heap of soba noodles into his mouth. Lavi looked surprised.

"Oh, really? How so?"

"Through Sayo."

"Ah…did you know her or something?"

Kanda smirked. "Yes, Sayaka, why don't you tell Lavi how you know Sayo? I'm sure he'd be interested to know."

She glared at him. Then she tossed some of her hair over one shoulder. "Only if he wants to know."

Lavi shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I'm assuming you're her friend? She always talked about a friend she knew at home."

Sayaka's cheeks went pink. Sayo had talked about her? She shot a brief glance at Kanda, who was smiling in a mocking sort of way, as if to say in a very subtle way, "You only know the half of it".

A few minutes later, Allen and Krory joined the table. Kanda rolled his eyes as Sayaka got excited that there were two other parasite-type accommodators and engaged in a conversation with them. Lavi moved over so he was sitting across from Kanda.

"What, you don't like her or something?" he asked.

Kanda said nothing.

"Come on, she's not that bad. What's with you? You're usually pretty easy on girls."

Still nothing. Suddenly, there was a loud shout from behind them.

"KANDA!!"

Before he had time to react, Kanda had Sayo's skinny arms wrapped around his waist, hugging him tightly. His eyebrow twitched. Lavi laughed at him as Hoshino came up to the table.

"Sayo, I think you've hugged him enough for today," he said, sitting next to Kanda.

Kanda looked at her, or tried to, since her face was kind of squished into his back, "Your fairy's here, why don't you go suffocate her?"

Immediately, Sayo let him go. "Sayaka's here? Oh boy!"

As she jumped on Sayaka from behind, Lavi looked on, slightly puzzled. "Fairy? What's that mean?"

As she was already surprised from being jumped on, Sayaka didn't have time to make up an excuse as Sayo gushed, "Oh, she used to be my fairy! Remember? I told you about her!"

Kanda watched as everyone at the table turned their eyes to her. Hoshino sighed heavily, putting a hand over the side of his face. "Ne chan…"

Sayaka's face went bright red. Sayo looked from her to the others.

"What? No one knew…? I thought you'd told them."

Since Sayaka was still unable to speak, Allen decided to interject. "Of course she did. It's just that you said that a little loudly, Sayo." He smiled kindly.

"I did? Oops…"

Krory looked at Allen, then nodded, seeing what he was doing. "That's right. Sayaka told us the other day."

"Huh? Then why didn't you tell me?" Lavi asked, still looking a tad confused.

"We were going to, but you were on a mission…"

"Oh. Well, it's no big deal, right? Hey…you okay?" he poked Sayaka's shoulder.

"Yeah…I'm fine."

Later on, after Sayo and Hoshino had finished training with him, Kanda was heading back up to the castle, when he heard voices coming from one of the clearings in the woods that dotted the cliff.

"I'm sorry, Sayaka…I didn't think you wanted me to tell Allen-kun and the others, so I didn't…" it was Lenalee.

The other voice, who was Sayaka herself, replied, "No, no, it's okay. I just didn't expect Sayo to shout it out like that."

Lenalee sat down on a bench in front of her. "I see. Did you tell them?"

She shook her head. "It's a little too much to explain. Although, Allen and Krory kind of saved me back there, acted like they already knew. I didn't want to lie to Sayo, but I also didn't want to make her feel bad."

"I understand. The truth might have been better, though."

"The truth…that would've gotten them drawn into this thing with me and…you know who."

"_You know who"?_ Kanda's eyebrow rose in slight curiosity.

The pigtailed girl leaned forward towards the former fairy. "Is it that serious?"

"No…it shouldn't be, anyway. I mean, it's not like he knows where this place is, right?"

"Right. But seriously, maybe if you just told them the truth while leaving that other part out."

There was a long pause. Kanda strained to listen. He didn't know why he was so curious, especially after Sayaka had slapped him silly yesterday. Suddenly, he jumped to the right as a streak of metal came shooting towards him.

THUNK

Kanda looked at the shiriken that was now embedded in the tree behind him. He looked back at the clearing to see Sayaka's arm outstretched after having thrown the weapon and Lenalee staring at him.

"What do you think you're doing, eavesdropping?" Sayaka shouted at him, starting to approach him.

Lenalee followed closely, to keep them from getting into a fight. Kanda pulled the shiriken out of the tree trunk and held it in his hand. There was no green aura around it. Her Innocence hadn't been activated. His eyebrow rose in slight interest. That had been an expert offensive move just now, he admitted to himself.

"Well?"

Kanda looked up, seeing her hand extended towards him. He dropped the throwing star in it casually.

"It's not like I heard anything I didn't already know." He replied.

"That doesn't give you the right to eavesdrop when I clearly wasn't talking to you." Sayaka said.

Lenalee got inbetween them. "Stop it, both of you. Save it for the akuma."

She would've said more, but her wireless golem flew in front of her face and Reever's voice emerged from the speaker.

"Lenalee, Chief Komui's got a mission for you. Come back to the castle."

"Oh, alright. Be right there."

The golem disappeared. Lenalee looked from Kanda to Sayaka once more. "I'm not going to have to take one of you back to the castle with me, am I?"

Kanda looked away, saying nothing. Sayaka's face flushed again.

"Sorry, Lenalee…" she felt like she was a little kid.

"Okay. Then I'm off."

Another long silence ensued once Lenalee had gone back to the castle. Kanda and Sayaka just stood there, not speaking to each other. Sayaka slipped the shiriken back into her holster and turned to leave.

"You cut your hair."

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. Kanda was looking at her. "What?"

He pointed at her head. "Your hair. I just noticed."

Her hand reached up and touched it. "Yeah…what of it?"

Kanda shrugged. "Nothing. I just noticed it, like I said."

She raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "Oh really?"

Kanda started to walk past her. "Yeah. Really."

She followed him.

"Why are you following me?"

"The castle's that way, isn't it? How else am I supposed to get there?"

"You don't have to follow me."

"Well, tough. I'm following you. Deal with it."

Kanda scowled, but tried to ignore her. There was nothing else he could do. Arguing would be pointless against someone like her. A long silence followed them up to the front gates. The Gatekeeper shuddered, seeing Kanda approaching and opened immediately without hesitation. Sayaka watched it open.

"What's that thing's problem?" she asked as they walked through the front gate.

"I dunno, he always does that." Kanda replied.

Another silence. This was getting even more annoying to Kanda than talking, so, weighing the options, he decided to start a conversation.

"So why'd you cut it?"

He felt Sayaka's eyes fall on him again, though he did not look back at her. She didn't respond right away.

"Um…I just…" should she tell him what precisely was running through her mind while she was hacking away at her hair the night before? "…just felt like changing it. That's all…why do you ask?"

"No reason in particular."

"Ah…"

The two exorcists came to a long hallway on the fourth level, where the individual rooms were. Kanda's was to the right, while Sayaka's was far down the left. Kanda started to go his own way.

"W…W-Wait, Kanda!" Sayaka blurted out.

Kanda stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. "What? Quit yelling."

"I…look, I'm…sorry."

He hesitated. "For what?"

"Hitting you."

Kanda just stood there. He hadn't seen that coming.

"Well," Sayaka started to back up in the opposite direction, "There. I said it. I don't care if you accept it or not, I apologized."

Kanda's dark grey eyes watched her until she disappeared out of sight. Now he was confused. What was with her? Before, she seemed to think of him exactly as he thought of her, but now she was apologizing to him? He shook his head a couple of times and started walking, but then, almost without realizing it, he had turned and started to follow after her. What was he doing?!

"Hey, wait a minute," he said, slowing down as he approached her (he had to run).

She stopped and looked at him. "What?"

"Why did you really hit me the other day? It wasn't just about what I said to Sayo, was it?"

For a moment, he thought he saw her eyes tremble. Then she looked away and he couldn't tell anymore.

"Well?"

"…You wouldn't get it. You'd call me foolish."

"I'd call anyone foolish for not being honest."

Sayaka's cheeks went red. "The way you looked…it pissed me off. You just started to remind me of _him_, they way you were smirking at me. I was afraid that if I didn't hit you to shut you up, you'd go on to call me cute or something."

His eyebrow rose quizzically as he replied, "Cute? Why the hell would I call you cute? You're nothing special."

Kanda half expected Sayaka to punch him or something, or get mad in some way, shape or form. But no, she blushed. Then she smiled at him!

"Thanks, Yuu."

He rolled his eyes, "Whatever…hey, wait a minute."

She started laughing. "Ha, took you long enough!"

Gritting his teeth, he pointed at her. "Don't call me that."

"Why not?"

"Just don't. Anyway, why the hell did you thank me?"

"For not calling me cute and for being bluntly honest with me." She replied, "It let me know that you're not some egotistical jerk that likes teasing people like that."

"Oh no? Then what am I, if not that?"

Sayaka shrugged. "An egotistical jerk that's always angry."

Kanda tsked her and started walking away.


	2. Part 2: Romania

Part Two: Romania

**Part Two****: Romania**

A few weeks later, Kanda was called to Komui's office by General Tiedoll, which was unusual, since the old general was usually off on his own somewhere drawing. When Kanda got there, he realized that it wasn't just the general, but it was also Marie, who he'd worked with before. He too was one of Tiedoll's disciples.

"Been a long time, Kanda." Marie said, nodding at him.

Kanda nodded back. Then he looked to Komui and Tiedoll, who were both behind Komui's desk, looking over a map. "General, what's the occasion? Usually, you're never here."

Tiedoll looked up. "Ah, you've arrived. We were just about to start without you."

"Start what?"

"You're going on a mission," Komui answered, looking up from the map, "And since the situation is pretty serious, you're going with a team, including the general here and Marie, and…" he looked at the door to the office, "One other person, as soon as they get here. We'll go ahead and brief you two now and you can fill in the last member later."

Tiedoll took the map and held it up for Marie and Kanda to see. "This is a map of an abandoned village in Romania. Recently, we've seen a lot of akuma activity happening there, and, odd as it may seem, humans that seem to be aiding them."

"Humans?" Marie's eyes widened, "How can that be? Why wouldn't the akuma have killed them?"

"That's what we're going to investigate." Tiedoll replied.

Kanda crossed his arms over his chest. "Something to do with a missing Innocence, I take it?"

To his surprise, Komui shook his head. "No, not this time. This is something completely different."

Suddenly, the door to the office opened and two people stumbled in.

"I found her, brother. She was training with Allen and Krory." Lenalee came in first, pushing open the door.

"Sorry for the wait." Sayaka followed behind her, "I—"

"Wha—" Kanda looked to see, and then stopped.

"Looks like we'll be going the same way for a while, here!" Lavi said cheerfully.

Sayaka smiled at him. "Yeah, looks like it."

Kanda merely rolled his eyes and looked out the window.

While General Tiedoll, Kanda, Marie and Sayaka were going to Romania, Lavi, Allen and Lenalee were heading to Italy, but there was only one train that would take both teams to both locations, via an international train station where they would part ways. Sayaka was relieved. At least she had someone to talk to, since Kanda wouldn't so much as look at her, Marie didn't seem interested in talking, and Tiedoll was too busy drawing. She spent the majority of the trip talking to Lavi, Allen and Lenalee.

Kanda, on the other hand, was annoyed. Being on the same train as Allen Walker was bad enough, but this time it wasn't just that white-haired Beansprout, it was Lavi, who could really rack on his nerves sometimes, and Sayaka, who confused the hell out of him. _He_ spent the majority of the trip to the international station staring out the window at the world as it whizzed past them.

At one point, the train stopped at another small station to pick up more passengers, since they were not yet full. Sayaka had been asleep up to when they stopped. She woke up, realizing that the cabin was deathly silent. She looked across from her and saw Allen leaning against the wall, out cold. A smile tugged at her lips when she saw that Lenalee was asleep as well, her head resting on Allen's shoulder.

_How cute…_

Then she noticed something else…Lavi was nowhere to be found.

_Hmm, I wonder where he went, _she thought, getting up and going outside. The train started to move again.

Sayaka looked up and down the corridor, seeing neither hide nor hair of the redheaded exorcist. But she did see Kanda coming in her direction.

"Hey," she said once he was within earshot, "Have you seen Lavi anywhere? I noticed that he wasn't in the cabin."

"Back there," Kanda replied without stopping, "he's busy sulking."

Ignoring the fact that he was trying to avoid looking at her again, Sayaka began walking in the direction he'd come from. Slowly, she opened the door slightly and peeked outside. Indeed, Lavi was out there, leaning against the railing, seemingly staring off into space.

She came outside and shut the door. "Ah, here you are. I was wondering where you had gone to."

Lavi looked over his shoulder and her, giving her a rather sad smile. "Hey."

"What's wrong? You don't look too happy." She came up beside him.

He shrugged. "Ah, nothing worth getting in a tiff over. I just have a lot on my mind. It was too quiet in the cabin, since you all were asleep, so I came out here where there was more noise."

"Kanda walked past me and told me where you were. Were you talking to him?"

"Kind of."

There was a long pause after that. Sayaka tried to think of another subject. "So, um, did you see the way Lenalee was leaning on Allen's shoulder like that? Don't you think it was adora…Lavi?"

She had turned to see if she'd gotten a reaction out of him, only to find that he now looked even sadder than before. It hit her instantly.

She turned to him. "Oh…I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry, I had no idea, Lavi…"

"…'s okay, you didn't know."

"No really. I should've thought of that. Does Lenalee know?"

"Know what?"

"That you like her, does she know?"

Lavi sighed heavily. "No, I haven't told her. I haven't been able to tell her for a long time now. I mean, think about the way her and Allen act around each other." He turned to face Sayaka, "They're so chummy to the point where it doesn't seem like being 'chummy' anymore, you know? Ever since he lost his arm, Lenalee's been around him so much. She helped him learn how to do stuff with just one arm, like eat and whatnot, and…" his voice trailed off, "It's even harder, because Allen's my friend. We're really good friends, too. I wouldn't want to, you know, drag Lenalee away from him if he feels the same way about her that I do."

He paused. "Am I boring you?"

Sayaka shook her head, looking _anything_ but bored. "No, go on."

Lavi hesitated, and then smiled in a relieved sort of way. "Finally, someone who listens. I appreciate it, Sayaka."

She grinned at him. "Of course. You're my friend too, you know."

His smile grew wider. "You too."

**That evening…**

Kanda was just aimlessly wandering about the train out of sheer boredom. He hoped that the train to Romania wouldn't plod along as slowly as the one he was on right now. Just as he started to pass to another car, he saw Sayaka standing outside where Lavi had been standing earlier that day.

"Where'd Lavi go?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Back to the cabin, I think. He said he was tired."

"Were you out here talking the whole time?"

"Yep. Before we knew it, it was dark. We really lost track of time." She smiled a little, "He…kinda needed someone to talk to."

Kanda's eyebrow rose. "…So he told you, then?"

"About Lenalee? Yes, he did. I feel sorry for him. It must be hard to confess something like that."

"I wouldn't know."

"…Did you already know or did he just tell you too?"

Kanda rolled his eyes. "I've known for a while now. This isn't the first time he's gotten all bent out of shape about this. The first time he told me, I listened. But after a while," he leaned against the opposite railing, "it just got annoying."

Sayaka frowned at him. "How could you think that annoying?"

"Because for all the complaining he does, he never does anything about it. He's never tried telling her _or_ finding out how Beansprout feels about Lenalee."

She looked down again. "I suppose you have a point. But I don't think he wants to ask Allen. I think he's afraid of what might happen if Allen does like Lenalee like that."

"He should know that that's the risk he takes."

"Hmph, some friend you are."

"Whatever."

All of a sudden, the train's wheels began to screech along the tracks, kicking up red sparks in their effort to stop. Everyone on the train was sent flying. Quickly, Kanda grabbed hold of the railing. Sayaka didn't get a good grip and ended up being thrown into Kanda.

She didn't stay there for long. When she heard one of the train car doors open, she pushed off of him and stood up straight. A moment later, General Tiedoll came outside.

"What's going on?" Kanda asked him.

"It seems there was a person lying on the tracks ahead of the train." Tiedoll replied calmly, "The police have been alerted."

"It will take a while to get here." Sayaka said, "We're practically in the middle of nowhere."

"Actually," the general looked at her, "One of the passengers on this train happened to be a police officer, and he made the call. Hopefully, they will get here as fast as they can."

"Is the person lying on the tracks alive?"

"Hard to say. He certainly didn't look alive when I saw him. Come, see for yourselves."

The two exorcists followed the general to a closer car in order to get a look at the cause of this emergency stop. Allen, Lenalee and Lavi, who had obviously been awakened by the stop, came out and began to follow as well. They entered a car, where Marie stood by the open door. He was keeping the passengers on board from forming a crowd outside.

"Those policemen better hurry up," he said, "It's getting harder to contain these people."

One of the passengers saw the group of exorcists that had just entered and whispered to the person beside her, "It's a bunch of exorcists…it looks like the situation's getting under control."

The whispering continued until everyone in the car got wind of the news. Calm settled slightly, making the situation easier to deal with. Tiedoll led the group outside, making them form a semicircle around the body in case someone managed to slip past Marie and come outside.

Everyone's jaw dropped. The body was certainly not alive in any way, shape or form. It looked like the man had been clawed to death. There was a long, glowing red gash along his throat, and his eyes were wide open with terror. His mouth was shaped into a silent scream that had begun to fade into an unconscious gap.

"Who could've done this?" Allen wondered aloud.

Lenalee backed away, standing behind him and Lavi. "It's horrible…I've never seen anything like this."

Lavi looked at her, but said nothing. He couldn't really think of anything to say that would comfort her, so he just looked back at the body again and said the first thing that came to mind, the most obvious thing, answering Allen's question. "An akuma, maybe? Though…I'm not sure what kind of akuma could do that."

"…Maybe not an akuma, but…I know something that can do that."

Everyone, including the police officer, looked at Sayaka, who'd just spoken. She was biting her lower lip, but said no more, waiting for someone else to say something.

Tiedoll spoke first. "What precisely do you know?"

The cop came forward. "Yes, a description would be a good idea. So we can keep an eye out for it."

She knew there was no way to avoid it, and also that it was going to happen sooner or later, so Sayaka told everything she knew about Thrax. She wasn't sure whether it was a good idea or not. After they got to the international station, she avoided everyone, even though it made her feel bad for not saying goodbye to Lavi and the others. Once she and her group were on the Romania-bound train, she stayed by herself, contemplating so hard that she became lost in her thoughts.

_Maybe I should have told the Order more about Thrax before, _she said in her head, _even though I'm pretty sure he's not an akuma…no, I actually have no IDEA what he is. Still, from what I heard, the Millennium Earl wasn't an akuma either, and he was still a big threat…what am I going to do now?_

The cabin door slid open. Kanda walked in. He could tell that Sayaka hadn't even heard him, because she was still staring out the window with that blank look in her eyes.

"Oi," he said, sitting across from her, "Are you still alive?"

She didn't respond. Kanda's eyebrows arched in irritation. He lightly kicked her.

"Wha?!" she jumped.

Kanda pulled his foot back. "Wake up. You looked like you were dead."

"Jeez, you didn't have to kick me!" she snapped, rubbing her leg. "Where'd Marie and the general go?"

He crossed his arms over his chest. "To the dining car."

"Why aren't you with them? You eat, don't you?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

Sayaka rolled her eyes. "Oh sure, now you want to talk to me."

"I'm serious," Kanda said, certainly looking serious, "Why did you bring up this Thrax guy when you saw the body?"

She hesitated to answer. "Because I know that he was the one who killed that man."

"How?"

"That's how Thrax kills. He has these long claws for fingers, and his left hand contains a deadly virus, like I told the cop. Weren't you listening?"

"…Is this guy the same one you were talking to Lenalee about, that day outside the castle?"

Sayaka nodded. "Yes…I didn't tell anyone but her and Komui. I said that he wasn't a big threat, but…" her voice trailed off and she looked down.

Kanda leaned forward slightly. "But you're having second thoughts?"

"…Kind of."

"Who was Thrax in relation to you?"

Sayaka stood up and started for the door. "I'm getting hungry. Let's talk later."

But before she could open it, Kanda got in front of it, blocking her off. "Tell me now."

She clenched her fists and glared at him. "Why should I? You never gave a damn about me before!"

"Think about it," he replied, "If he killed someone this close to where we were heading, he may have something to do with our mission."

The female exorcist's hands went limp at her sides and she backed away, starting to look scared. Kanda noticed this, but didn't move.

"If you tell me now, you may not get in trouble. You shouldn't get in trouble anyway. There's no way you could've known."

Sayaka sat down, holding her head in her hands. "H-How can you be sure?"

This time, Kanda came over and sat beside her. "You just found out, that's how. Come on, even you could've figured that out."

She looked at him. He didn't look angry now, just serious, maybe even a little _concerned_, or maybe it was just her in her state of sudden fear. Then she looked away again, trying to hide her glowing cheeks. "Thrax is the one that grew this body for me. That's why, when you met me, I was running with him. I didn't completely realize what he was using me for."

"So, besides the fact that you were an accommodator, you left because you didn't want to be with him anymore?"

"Anymore?" she sniffed, "I was never _with_ him in the first place. I left because I didn't want to be his little toy anymore. Besides, he hurt Sayo."

"Is it something else? That doesn't sound like everything. Why did you get so scared all of a sudden?"

But Sayaka shook her head. "I don't want to think about it, okay?"

"…" Kanda had a vague idea of what else, but he wanted to hear her say it, "Let me guess," he finally said, acting like he really was guessing, "You think he's coming back for you or something?"

As he expected, she slowly nodded.

He stood up. "I see…well, should I be the one to tell General Tiedoll, or will you do it?"

She didn't move. Then she forced herself to stand up with him. "I'll do it, but come with me anyway, in case I need someone to vouch for me."

**Romania, 12:00 PM**

Komui had been right. This mission had absolutely _nothing_ to do with the Innocence, not in any sense of the word. In fact, it looked more like a case of zombies, rather than akuma. There were no akuma to be seen around the mass of lethargically-moving humans.

"Definitely humans," Marie stated, peering over the crumbling wall that was blocking everyone, including him, from view, "I can hear their heartbeats…definitely human."

Tiedoll nodded in acknowledgement, and then shook his head. "Very strange…this is something we've never encountered before. If there is indeed an akuma here, it must be somehow controlling the people."

"There's a good chance that these people may already be dead," Kanda replied, "So I doubt that killing them will do any harm now."

Sayaka didn't say anything. She was thinking again. Tiedoll looked at her.

"A penny for your thoughts?" he asked.

She looked up at the old general. "I was just thinking…if these people are like this, then it _is _an akuma. I remember there being one akuma that Thrax didn't want killed. He said he liked his power. He could make dead people act as if they were still alive…or like puppets, I should say. He was called Baxter."

"I see. Then I say let's assume that this Thrax is indeed behind this—"

"No, sir, I didn't say that. I don't think Baxter is running with Thrax anymore. He's probably doing this on his own. I can't say what his reason is, but if Thrax were involved in this, we would have already been discovered."

Marie got down from where he was standing so the wall was now completely blocking him. "You seem to know a lot more about this guy than you made us think."

Tiedoll said to him, "Now, now, don't get testy, Marie. The more information we have, the better. We can use it to our advantage. Let's take time now and plan an attack. We don't have time to waste."

The four got into a closer group. Tiedoll took a nearby stick and started to draw in the sand. For a stick drawing, his model of the village was quite accurate.

"Now, we are at the east entrance of the village," he pointed to the end of the drawing closest to him, "and there are only two other entrances to the south and west. It's possible that all of these entrances are being watched, and since there are no visible Level Ones floating above the village, an airborne entrance may be the best action."

Kanda looked at the drawing thoughtfully. "Are we sure there's no underground passage somewhere? Like maybe a sewer or some sort of underground structure the people may have built?"

To his disdain, Tiedoll shook his head. "I asked Komui about this before leaving the Order. He told me that the finders inspected as much as they could, which was quite a bit before they were run out by the villagers, but couldn't find any proof of a sewer or even an underground basement."

Kanda cursed. Marie sighed, letting his stony look resume. Sayaka started to get it.

"So maybe then two of us could get on top of the outer wall of the nonexistent north entrance and distract them while the other two come in one of the other entrances?"

Tiedoll smiled. "Exactly. Since you two are the highest jumpers, you and Kanda will be the distraction while Marie and I go in through the west entrance."

Sayaka sweatdropped. She should've seen that coming. Out of the corner of her eye, she looked in Kanda's direction. He didn't look happy about the decision either. But Tiedoll was a General, and she knew that arguing would be pointless.

She sighed. "Okay."

"As Kanda said, these people are already dead, so killing them will be no great loss. It will be putting them at peace. Once we are all inside the city, our prime objective is to search and destroy the akuma. Understand?"

Marie nodded. Kanda nodded, still looking pissed. Sayaka didn't nod, but she didn't feel she had to. She was obligated to oblige as an exorcist, and she had to accept that. She only hoped she was right and Thrax wasn't involved in this at all. Tiedoll told Kanda and Sayaka to go to the east entrance and wait until he and Marie were situated.

As they walked to their designated area, Kanda noticed that Sayaka didn't look at him once. She was looking straight forward, as if trying to convince herself of something.

Trying to get some reaction out of her, he said, "You'd better not screw this up. I'm not going to help you if you get cut down."

"…" it took her a minute to reply, "Don't. Just don't, okay? I don't like this anymore than you do, so quit it."

She didn't sound like she meant it to anger him. She sounded worried. She sounded scared. Normally, Kanda would assume this as normal rookie behavior, but she wasn't a rookie anymore.

"Get it together. This isn't your first mission, so you have no reason to be scared."

"I said quit it."

They stood at the wall. Kanda turned to face her. "You're doing this whether you like it or not."

She turned to him, looking like she was going to yell at him to quit it, but instead she clenched her fists and bit her lip to stop herself. Then she said softly, "I know…" she dropped her fists, "but that's not what I'm worried about."

Tiedoll threw a rock in their direction, letting them know that he and Marie were in position. Kanda unsheathed the Mugen, watching Sayaka take out her taichi sword.

He snorted. "God, you're confusing."

He heard her say, just before they both leapt into the air, "Yeah, and you're so _easy_ to figure out."

The minute they flew over the outer wall, every face in the thriving mass of dead puppets below turned their faces up to see the impending doom that was the two exorcists. Kanda's blade glowed with a blinding white light.

"KAICHUU ICHIGEN!"

In an instant, twenty humans had been reduced to nothingness as the creatures from the Mugen devoured them whole. Marie rushed in, ripping apart another group of puppets with his Noel Organ. Sayaka twisted her body so she flipped in the air, landing on her feet in the middle of a crowd. She slashed like mad at the puppets, not seeing them as human at all. Not even a little bit. They stopped being human when Baxter stole their lives away and kept them as souvenirs. He was twisted like that. Tiedoll was using his own unique attack of Art on a bunch that wouldn't stop coming, no matter how many were cut down. Normally, he would let the attack spread to a wider range, but since they were all scattered about, there was no telling if he would hit one of them instead of the target.

But even so, Sayaka couldn't help thinking, as she rushed through what used to be a store, that something was wrong with this situation.

_It's too easy…even for Baxter, and I KNOW this is his work…_

"Heh heh…look at the little people run around with their toys!"

The fighting halted. Everyone looked up at the west entrance, even the puppets. A Level Three akuma stood there, doing the captain pose with his knee up in the air. Sayaka came out of the shop.

"Ah, there she is!" Baxter crooned excitedly, "Just the lady I was lookin' for. You look less like a slut now, I see."

She blushed as fury filled her body. Her hand clamped tightly around the hilt of her sword. Baxter was making a fool of her in front of her comrades.

He bent forward a little, as if trying to look at her more closely. "Poor little girl, am I embarrassing you in front of your friends?"

Without thinking, she jumped at him, stabbing her blade into his shoulder and forcing him off the wall. She didn't have time to listen to Kanda yelling, "You idiot!" but she heard him anyway.

They fell to the ground and Baxter, unfortunately, was the first to recover. He stood up, dragging Sayaka by the arm, then threw her up, making her drop her sword. He caught her by the neck, making her squeak, since her breath was cut off before she could scream.

"Man, what was the boss thinking, making such a thing? I mean, what was the point of going through all that trouble of growing you that body if all you were going to do is double-cross him?"

He dropped her. "Tell me, little slut, why'd you ditch him in the first place?"

She scowled. "I don't have to explain a thing to you, you son of a bitch. As far as I'm concerned, you're nothing but one of Thrax's goons and nothing more. He didn't treat you any differently from me. He used both of us."

Dodging his crushing fist as it slammed into the sand, Sayaka watched Baxter as he came at her.

"Are you fucking kidding?" he spat as they fought, "You were his little princess! I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to make a pass at you!"

"Shut up!" she snapped, throwing a shuriken in his eye, or more like stabbing it into his eye.

Baxter fell over, yelling and carrying on as he clawed at the throwing star embedded in his eye. Sayaka hadn't had the chance to re-activate her Innocence when her sword was knocked form her hands, so the shiriken didn't kill him. She took up her sword again, allowing her Innocence to flood the weapon.

"Heh, heh heh," Baxter started to stagger to his feet, "Is that as far as you've gotten with your synchronization rate? Not even going for the level two attacks yet? How pathetic. Thrax must be so disappointed."

She flinched. "Wh…What? What do you mean, he _must_ be?"

He smiled evilly, "He's here, you know. He told me to wait for you. He wants to see you again."

THWAP

Baxter took a chance at Sayaka's momentary distraction and backhanded her, sending her careening over to the wall. He sauntered over to her as she landed, sprawled all over the ground.

"He should've put someone else up to it. I really never liked you, Sayaka. I wanted to kill you myself. Heh…better late than nev—AAAAUGGHHH!"

"Shut up."

In a blinding flash, Baxter was gone, his last scream echoing. Kanda quickly resheathed the Mugen. His gray eyes fell on Sayaka, who was coming to.

"You need to learn not to attack like that without thinking, stupid," he said, "He could've killed you."

She didn't reply as she got to her feet, the green aura around her sword fading as she resheathed it.

"Come on, let's go. We've completed the mission."

"…No. We can't go."

Kanda looked at her in disbelief. "What?"

She came closer. "We can't leave yet. Didn't you hear what he said? Thrax is here. I was wrong. We have to stay here and destroy him too."

"He's not our mission. We've done ours. Thrax is someone else's problem now."

"How can you be so coldhearted? And where do get off calling _me_ stupid?!"

Kanda reared back a little, taken aback by this sudden blow to his eardrums. Sayaka walked right up to him.

"You don't get it, do you? If we leave now and some other exorcist is sent to deal with Thrax, that exorcist will end up like that man on the train tracks!" she shouted, "Thrax only wants me, there's no reason for anyone else to get involved!"

Tiedoll and Marie came upon the scene, having heard the shouting from inside the village. The general tried to alleviate the situation.

"Sayaka, Kanda is right," he said, "We have no other business. We must leave. If you tell Komui about what's happened, then maybe he'll send you back later."

But Sayaka continued to shake her head. "No, by then it'll be too late! We can't wait on this! If you won't help me, then I request that I stay by myself!"

Kanda scowled. "Listen to what you're saying. You just don't want to go back to the Order because you know you'll be in trouble for what you didn't tell them."

Now she looked at him in disbelief. "You said there was no way I could've known! You said I wouldn't get in trouble!"

"I didn't think you'd do something so stupid."

"I'll get in trouble anyway! I can't get away from that, so let me fix this before it gets out of hand! Please, General, I'm begging you!"

Kanda and Marie looked at Tiedoll. Kanda was giving him a look that specifically said, "Don't let her do this". Marie was copying this with a less furious expression, but the same level of emotion behind it. Tiedoll looked long and hard at Sayaka.

"You understand that this alone will cause you to receive punishment?" he asked her.

She nodded.

He sighed, closing his eyes for a minute. "Very well. I will allow you to stay. But don't come back until this has been dealt with."

Marie and Kanda looked shocked. "General!"

"Come on, you two. Let's go back to the train station and inform Chief Komui of the situation."

The general pulled the two protesting exorcists away, going towards the horizon. Sayaka watched them, then proceeded into the village. The sun was setting…it wouldn't be long now. If she remembered anything about Thrax, it was that he liked to do these types of things at nighttime. He was weird like that.

Meanwhile, a good distance away, the other three exorcists had stopped, deep in a heated argument.

"General, what are you thinking? This is ridiculous!" Kanda fumed, "You shouldn't have given into her damn stubbornness!"

Marie nodded in agreement. "If she's killed, then we'll be responsible for this Thrax person. We should stay and help."

But Tiedoll remained unmoved. He held up a hand in Kanda's face, just before the dark-haired exorcist went off on another rant. "I have a plan for this. Marie is right. We cannot let her handle this alone. We will wait here and observe the situation. If it looks like a turn for the worst, one of us will go and lend Sayaka a hand. Marie, use your golem and contact Komui."

"…Yes sir."

"Kanda, wait until it gets dark, then return to the village."

Kanda scowled again. "Why me?"

Tiedoll smiled. "Because her stubbornness is not unlike your own."


	3. Part 3: Thrax Strikes

Part Three: Thrax Strikes

**Okay, I didn't mention this in the first chapter, because I forgot. There are going to be extra characters in this story from other things besides anime. For instance, Thrax is from Osmosis Jones (and I don't own him). Other characters will appear in the future. And for the record, I do not own D Grayman or anything from the story. **

**Part Three****: Thrax Strikes**

Nightfall. Still no sign of Thrax anywhere. Sayaka had been waiting in the village square forever. She started to get impatient. He must have been hiding, waiting for her to get frustrated.

She had to admit, even though she had wanted to do this, she was scared to death of what might happen. Thrax was not one who forgot a slight against him easily. He would often hold a grudge that ended in gruesome death. But as long as that death didn't happen to Kanda, Marie or Tiedoll, Sayaka was fine with the anger. Most of it would be directed at her for leaving anyway.

But there was one thing she didn't understand. Why hadn't Thrax intervened when Kanda killed Baxter? It was too easy. Thrax liked to make these things more complicated and difficult. So why didn't he?

"Was he really using Baxter?" she whispered.

Suddenly, she heard something behind her. Footsteps…heavy footsteps. She didn't move. Her hand moved to the handle of one of her kunai, waiting.

"Sayaka."

She turned, not believing what she was hearing. "Kanda?!"

There he stood, plain as day.

"What are you doing here?"

"…The general told me to come back. He thinks we'll be responsible if you get killed."

She turned away again, suddenly feeling angry. "What is he thinking? Is he crazy?"

Kanda's eyes narrowed. "You shouldn't talk about General Tiedoll like that. You don't know him. Besides, you know you can't do this alone."

"What makes you think I can't?"

"What makes _you_ think you're so great that you can take on this guy by yourself? Not relying on other people is stupid. It would be pointless if you died alone out here."

Sayaka's anger faded slightly and was replaced by an odd feeling. She turned around and came up to him. "…Kanda, why are you saying such things?"

His expression did not change. "Isn't it obvious?"

Her face flushed. Was he really implying that…? No…wait. This wasn't Kanda. This wasn't like Kanda at all. He wouldn't call her by her name, he never did. He wouldn't come back, no matter who ordered him to do so. Before she knew it, he was right in front of her, looking in her eyes.

"S…Stop it, Kanda. That's not funny. This isn't like you."

All of a sudden, something grabbed her. Her arms were forcibly clamped to her sides as if she were being bound by some invisible rope. Kanda smiled. Now she _knew_ it wasn't him, without a doubt. She trembled.

"…Thrax?"

The image of Kanda faded and Thrax took his place. He was still smiling. "Good guess. Took you a while, though."

He chuckled. Sayaka tried to move, but couldn't. Dead humans were holding her fast. How could that be? Baxter was dead!

"You should've seen your face. You looked like you were falling for him or something. How cute."

"What…what's going on? There shouldn't be…" she tried to say. The dead humans squeezed her until she yelped in pain.

Thrax nodded. "Yes, I know what you're thinking. Baxter is dead and this effect should've worn off, right? Wrong. The effect can last for days after the invoker is dead. That's the only reason I used him. I'll have to thank your friend though, for killing Baxter."

Sayaka tried to get a hold of herself, even though it was difficult. "Thrax…why did you kill that man on the train tracks? What did he do to deserve that?"

"Ah, so you got my greeting card. How nice. I was beginning to wonder if you'd gotten it at all."

"That was cruel!"

"Not as cruel as what you've done."

He put one hand on the side of her face, feeling her body shake. "I made you that body at your request, and all I asked for was your help. I trained you to fight like that. I even decided to leave that Innocence in you, despite the consequences. And how do you repay me? By running off and cutting your ties with me like that? Baby, that's crueler than anything I ever did."

Sayaka shut her eyes tightly. She could sense his anger coming. She didn't want to see him. It scared her. It always had.

Thrax noticed this, looking anything but angry. "I should be angry. But I'm not. I asked you here to give you another chance. Come back to me, Sayaka. Leave the Order and come back with me. Things can get better."

"Y-You're lying. You were going to plant that stolen Innocence on me if I hadn't been its accommodator. Nothing will get better. Nothing will change. I can't leave the Order and I won't." Sayaka replied as bravely as she could.

"I wish you hadn't cut your hair," he said as if he hadn't heard her, "You looked so cute before."

"Stop treating me like that! Don't you dare call me cute!" She shouted in his face, "Didn't you hear me? This is my life and I'm not going back! _I'm never going back!_"

There was a long silence as Thrax processed this. Sayaka momentarily forgot her fear. She tried again to break free, but the dead humans held her too tightly.

After the long silence, Thrax said, "It's because of him, isn't it? That boy exorcist."

She blinked. "What?"

"You want to protect him, don't you? That's why you were here by yourself. That's why you were so scared when you thought I was him. That's why you looked so in love."

Her face flushed. "What are you talking about?"

"Come on, anyone could tell from your reaction." He told her, sounding jealous, "If I got rid of him, you wouldn't have anything left to go back to, would you, baby?"

She shook her head furiously. "No…no, Thrax, don't do it. You wanted me, deal with me! Leave Kanda out of this, please!"

"No, it's too late to ask me that," he turned around and started walking away, "You can't deny it now. You're infatuated with him. He's going to pay for this."

Sayaka started to struggle with the dead humans holding her. She pulled, using as much strength as she could muster. Then, suddenly, her body shuddered violently. She dropped to her knees, sweating and panting.

"Oh, I forgot to mention," she heard Thrax call to her, since he was further away, "You're body's not entirely stable. You'll exhaust yourself if you keep doing that."

"Thrax, no!" she gasped, struggling despite what he'd just said.

"He's coming now, that boy. Best not to keep him waiting."

Fear flooded her heart. Kanda was coming. Night had fallen and he had no idea what was about to happen. She had to stop Thrax…but how?

_Her stubbornness is not unlike your own._

Tiedoll's words reverberated in Kanda's head ever since he set out for the village again. It was true. She was similar to him, but it was stupid to say that she was the same. Kanda felt that that was what Tiedoll was implying.

"She'll get it for this," he muttered, but he felt no meaning behind his words. It was just something to say.

He was coming upon the village now. He hadn't realized how far away he'd actually been. As the entrance loomed ahead, he thought he saw something in the village, and he thought he heard something calling him.

"Kanda…!"

_What?_ He quickened his pace.

The calling became clearer. "Kanda, run! Get away! Don't come into the village!"

"What are you babbling about?" he shouted back, "Don't try to tell me to go back, Tiedoll told me to help you, no matter how stubborn you're going to be."

"No, listen to me!" she shrieked, "Thrax is here! He's coming for you!"

"What?"

He suddenly felt a presence behind him. He jumped forward and spun around, taking out his sword. Thrax stood behind him. He smiled.

"So, it's you, huh?" Kanda said to him, "You're Thrax."

"And you're the one who stole my girl," Thrax replied.

Kanda sweatdropped. "What?"

"…Heh, I knew it." Thrax laughed, "You don't really like her. She just likes you. But still, _you're_ the reason she won't return to me. Sorry, but I'm going to have to kill you."

The dark-haired exorcist snorted. "Che…as if you could kill me."

They started to fight. For the most part, Kanda was on the defensive, blocking Thrax's jabs and slashes as best he could. He was very fast, it was almost too hard to keep up with him. The whole time, Kanda tried to venture a guess as to what this creature was. There was no way he could be human.

Finally, he found a way to trip him and acted accordingly, knocking him to the ground. The tip of the Mugen was pointing at Thrax's forehead, inches away from entering his skull.

"What are you?"

Thrax smiled. "You mean Sayaka's never told you? Oh wait, that's right. Even she doesn't know. Do you?"

Sayaka was too exhausted to move. She had been struggling that whole time. She was trying as hard as she could to break free and stop the fight before it got too serious. Though she hated to admit it, dreaded to even imagine it, Kanda was no match for Thrax. It was hard to defeat something when you didn't even know what it was.

Meanwhile, Thrax was peeling one side of his long black trench coat to the side, exposing part of red-skinned chest. There was a mask over the part of the chest where the heart was supposed to be. The mask was colored red as well, with a black pentacle star on the forehead. Kanda's eyes widened and he fought to keep the sword pointed at him.

"An…akuma?"

Thrax lunged and forced Kanda onto the ground in his place. The Mugen remained in his tight grip, even as he had the wind knocked out of him.

"That's right," Thrax loomed over him, "I am an akuma, a Level Four, to be specific. But I'm different from the stragglers that the Millennium Earl created. I didn't take the body of a human. I chose to take the body of a Gost. I stole all of his knowledge, not that there was much, and his abilities, including body growing." He looked up at Sayaka, "Make sense now?"

A Gost _and_ a Level Four to boot…he was a bigger threat than ever now. Kanda had seen a Level Four in the past, only once.

Kanda got back on his feet. "You're bluffing."

But the akuma smirked. "So naïve. I bet even you don't have enough power to bring me down, no matter how good of an exorcist you think you are."

That was a direct challenge. Kanda tried to restrain himself from obliging it, but if he didn't kill him, who else would? It was obvious that Sayaka couldn't. He had no choice.

He had to try.

"No, Kanda! I know what you're thinking of doing, but don't do it!"

Both looked at Sayaka.

"Who else is going to do it, you?" Kanda replied, "You can't even move."

Thrax smiled. "He's right, Sayaka, you shouldn't butt in. This doesn't concern you right now."

"Please, Kanda! I'm begging you!"

Kanda rushed him. He released Ichigen on Thrax and skidded to a stop. It was a clear shot. There was no way it could miss.

But it did. Only because Thrax saw it coming and disappeared just before it hit him.

"Where did he go?"

He was nowhere to be found. Did he chicken out? It seemed unlikely, considering how long they'd been fighting. But, now would be as good a time as any to cut Sayaka loose. He turned and started towards her.

Sayaka saw him coming closer. She felt slightly relieved. "Hey…I thought you said you wouldn't save me if I got cut down."

Kanda rolled his eyes. "This is a one time thing. Don't get used to it. It won't happen again."

SQUELCH

Immense pain. A wave of burning heat swept through him. He looked down and saw glowing red claws imbedded in his stomach. He heard Sayaka scream. Then he heard whispering in his ear.

"You let your guard down."

Thrax held up Kanda's face with his right hand so he was looking at Sayaka again. His vision started to go blurry.

"See this?" Thrax shouted to her, "You always wondered what would happen if someone were to be injected with my virus, right?"

"Stop! Let him go!" she cried, holding back the tears that were building up behind her eyes.

But Thrax didn't listen. He held onto Kanda and started pumping the virus into him, causing the exorcist's body to flush as if he had a fever. He cried out in pain, dropping the Mugen onto the ground. The blade deactivated upon landing in the sand.

Something clicked inside Sayaka's head. Immediately, she clenched her fists and pulled with all her might one last time.

"GRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!"

The dead humans' arms were ripped off their bodies and they dropped to the ground, disappearing in a wave of bright green light. The Innocence in Sayaka's body was on full power. She left her sword behind and felt herself flying at Thrax faster than she ever had before. She didn't take out a kunai or a shiriken. Her brain was telling her to do something else. She appeared in front of Thrax almost like she had teleported. He doubled back, still holding onto Kanda.

Sayaka dove her hand inside of Thrax's, the one that was pumping the virus, and fused with it. She started to pull.

"Stop it! What the hell are you doing?!" Thrax snapped, trying to resist.

But right now, Sayaka was stronger, now that her level two attack had been activated. She could take her hands and fuse them with anyone and anything, and control their movements and actions. She pulled Thrax's hand out of Kanda's stomach, ripping it right off of his arm. It turned to ash and blew away instantly.

Thrax screamed in anger, clutching his bleeding stump of an arm. Casting one final, enraged look at Sayaka, he opened his coat and flew off, disappearing into the night.

Kanda could see Sayaka standing in front of him. Her hand was red from the blood of the akuma Thrax. He fell to his knees just before blacking out.

"Kanda!"

Sayaka caught him before he could fall forward. Gently, she laid him on his back and opened his coat. There were four glowing red marks where Thrax's claws had been. His body wasn't flushed anymore, but it was hot and sweaty, almost burning to the touch. His breath was getting shorter.

"Kanda, listen to me!" Sayaka tried to tell him, "Don't go unconscious, try to stay awake! I'm going to get you to the general, and he'll know what to do! Say something if you understand me!"

But Kanda said nothing. His breath was too short to allow words to be spoken. Everything was going dark. Finally the moon's light and Sayaka's face both faded and were swallowed up by the darkness.

"K…Kanda?" she had seen the light leave his eyes, "Can you hear me? Kanda, are you still with me?"

Her hand lightly touched his face, smearing blood on his pale skin. Instantly, she took it back. The silence was too much. The tears forced their way out. She shook uncontrollably as she brought both hands up to her eyes to wipe the tears away, even though it was of no use. She couldn't stop crying.

"…what…h-have I done…?" she choked out.

She pressed her ear to Kanda's chest. _P-Please be alive…please only be knocked out…_

There was no heartbeat.

"General, it's been too long…we must go see if they are alright." Marie said.

Tiedoll took out his communication golem. Its eye lit up as it turned on. "Kanda? Sayaka? Do you read me?"

Static.

He tried again. "Kanda? Sayaka? If you're there, say something."

"_General!_"

Marie looked up. "General…there they are!"

Tiedoll looked up, at first looking relieved. Then he saw that something was wrong. He started toward them, Marie following him.

Sayaka moved unsteadily, holding Kanda's arm around her shoulder while her own was around his waist. The Mugen was clenched in her free hand. "General! Help, please!"

She stopped as they came up to her.

"What happened? Is Kanda…?" Marie began.

"He's not breathing!" Sayaka replied in a strained voice, "His heart's not beating!"

"…Give him to me." Marie held out his hands.

Sayaka shifted to the left as she tried to move Kanda. Marie took him and knelt down on the ground. Tiedoll got down on one knee, leaving Sayaka standing by herself.

"Check the tattoo, Marie." Tiedoll said.

Marie nodded, pulling back the left side of the black coat. There was a silence as everyone laid their eyes upon Kanda's tattoo. It was glowing red on his chest as if it were on fire.

Sayaka trembled. "Wh-What is that? Why is it glowing like that?"

"The tattoo is trying to fight off whatever's inside of him," Marie answered, not looking at her.

Tiedoll wiped his hand across his forehead. "It looks like it's having a hard time. We must get him to a doctor, quickly. There's another village nearby, south of here. Take Kanda there, Marie. I will join you later."

The tall exorcist nodded, standing, taking Kanda with him. He didn't as much as look at Sayaka as he turned to leave. She did not say anything to this.

Tiedoll turned to her. "I'll take his weapon."

She handed it to him without argument.

"What happened? Is Thrax destroyed?"

She shook her head. "No…he got away. I wounded him, but he still…" the words got caught in her throat. "I'm…"

The old general put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm yourself. He's not beyond saving. You saw it yourself, his body's trying to fight back whatever happened to him."

"Thrax tried to kill him," she blurted out, "I was too late…I didn't break free in time…"

Suddenly, before Tiedoll could say anything else, his communication golem started fluttering about frantically. Its eye lit up again.

"_General Tiedoll, we just received your report,_" it was Section Leader Reever, "_have there been any new developments?_"

"…Kanda has been momentarily cut down and is in critical condition," Tiedoll replied, "He has been taken to a nearby village until someone sends a medical team to take him back to the Order."

There was a pause on the other line. It sounded like Reever was relaying the message to someone, maybe Komui. "_Understood, General. Is it possible for one of your exorcists to return to the Order now to explain the details to Chief Komui?_"

Tiedoll looked at Sayaka. She nodded, signifying that she would go back.

"Sayaka is on her way there now, Section Leader Reever. Marie and I will wait in the village for the medical team."

"_Alright._"

The golem's eye dimmed and Tiedoll stuffed it back into his coat. "The train station isn't far. Keep heading that way," he pointed in the direction opposite from the way Marie had gone.

Finally, Sayaka managed to get the words out. "I'm sorry, sir. I've failed."

Tiedoll smiled. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

He started to walk toward the other village, the one whose inhabitants hadn't been turned into mindless puppets. Sayaka lingered for a minute, then turned and walked to the train station.


	4. Part 4: Rumors

Part Four: Rumors

**Part Four****: Rumors**

"…So this Thrax was an akuma after all?" Komui asked, his chin resting on his knitted-together hands.

Sayaka nodded mutely. She had just arrived at the Order and had been lead straight to Komui's office upon arrival. She was still a mess.

"The medical team reached the village where the General was not long after you got here, so they will arrive here by tomorrow at the least."

Again, she nodded.

"…Sayaka, given the situation, I believe you know what I'm going to say next."

She waited.

"I'm sorry to say this, but I am holding you responsible for this matter. I have spoken to the Great Generals and they agree with me on this decision. You are suspended from your duties for the next three months. You are not allowed to use your Innocence or any of your weapons during that time."

Sayaka's eyes widened, but she still said nothing. Lenalee, who had been standing at the door, marched up to her brother's desk looking outraged.

"Brother Komui!" she started to say, "Wait just a minute!"

Komui looked up at her.

"This isn't fair! From what she said, I don't think even Sayaka knew he was an akuma until last night! We shouldn't punish her for that!"

"Lenalee, you weren't there. You don't know what happened."

"Neither were you!"

Sayaka turned to Lenalee. "It's okay, really. I…I'll accept my punishment."

Komui took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Then he looked up again. "You see, Lenalee? Sayaka, you can leave now. Get some rest."

She nodded. Giving one last smile to Lenalee, she said, "I appreciate you sticking up for me, though. Thank you." And then left.

But Lenalee still wasn't convinced. "Komui, I don't agree with this at all. Three months is way too long! It's not like Kanda died out there!"

Komui stood up and came around his desk to his sister. "Lenalee, relax. I said three months, but that doesn't mean I can't end it earlier. The Generals told me to watch her and make sure she obeys the conditions of the suspension. If she shows good behavior, I'll shorten the time."

The pigtailed exorcist calmed down a bit. "…I understand."

Komui smiled. "There, you see? I know what I'm doing. On the related subject…" he went to sit down again, "what has the infirmary said about Kanda?"

Lenalee sat on the bench in front of the desk. "Well, he's still not awake, but his heart is beating again. They think that he'll be in there for at least a month, if not longer."

"I see. And what did the doctors find out about the virus that was in him?"

She shrugged. "Nothing, yet. They can't seem to identify it. It is different from the normal akuma's blood virus, though. If it were the same, Kanda would probably be recovered by now. Marie said the tattoo on Kanda's chest was glowing red when Sayaka brought him to them."

"…Very odd, indeed. Though, I suppose it won't happen again, if Sayaka did indeed rip his hand off." Komui smirked. "Her innocence is very unique, indeed."

Lenalee nodded in agreement. "It looked like this mission really bothered Sayaka. I think it's because of what happened to Kanda."

She couldn't have been more correct. Sayaka was indeed bothered by what happened to Kanda. In fact, bothered may have been an understatement. Anytime she thought about it during that first month, she would momentarily burst into tears. She didn't want anyone to see her cry, so she shut herself up in her room, not leaving at any time of the day, not even for food.

Komui hadn't disclosed the details of what happened to anyone else in the Order, except for Lenalee and Reever. Lavi knew, because Kanda was his friend, and Allen knew because Lavi was _his_ friend. But they knew better than to tell anyone else. Unfortunately, somehow the information got out, and a lot of people in the Order began whispering rumors about it. One afternoon, Allen was carrying a loaded tray of food to a table for lunch, and he overheard a couple of other exorcists talking.

"…heard that Kanda almost died. Can you believe that?"

"Seriously. Any akuma that can do that must be really strong."

"I heard that Sayaka girl didn't even try to save him. She just stood there and watched, like an idiot."

"She's always acted so high and mighty ever since she came here. I bet she's not so tough now, huh?"

Allen acted like he wasn't listening and sat with Lavi and Lenalee. He looked at them and saw that by their expressions, they had heard too.

"Why bother whispering?" Lavi muttered, "Everyone and their mother can hear those bastards."

Allen shrugged. "It isn't fair. They weren't even there. They have no right to be judging Sayaka like that."

Lenalee nodded, looking angry. "I wish they'd stop. It's gotten so bad that Sayaka won't even come out of her room. I don't think she's eaten in a week."

"A week? God, she must be starving. She's a parasite accommodator, right? Don't we need more energy?" Allen wondered, holding a piece of mitarashi dango in his hand.

"That's what Komui's told me…"

Suddenly, the dining hall went dead silent. Lavi and Allen looked over their shoulders to see, and Lenalee looked over their heads. Sayaka had come in, going up to Jerry's window.

"Well, nice to see you again!" Jerry greeted, smiling, "What can I get you?"

Sayaka gave him a small smile in return. "Um…just a bowl of soup and some water, please."

"Huh? That's all?" Jerry sounded disappointed, "Are you sure that's enough?"

She nodded. "Yeah, it's okay. I'm not that hungry."

"…Okay. Coming right up."

Jerry disappeared into the kitchen. Sayaka could feel the eyes on her, just like her first day at the Order, only now, she could feel anger and doubt behind those eyes. She didn't turn around, even though it was killing her. She didn't want to see the looks she was probably getting. She hadn't just heard the rumors, she _knew_ every detail of the rumors. People would talk as they walked past her room, and she could hear them as clearly as if they were right beside her. It didn't do much to improve her mood. It only made her feel worse.

"Here you go."

"Thank you very much."

She took the tray and started to walk out of the dining hall quickly, so she could escape the eyes faster. When she was in the corridor, she looked in the window. Lenalee, Lavi and Allen had been watching her too. But at least they didn't feel angry. At least they were sympathetic, even though in most cases, she hated sympathy even more than she hated the anger. She needed _someone's _sympathy right now.

As she was going back to her room, she saw Marie walking toward her, or rather, in the direction she had just come from. She slowed down a little, opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it. Marie walked right past her without saying anything. Once he'd passed, Sayaka stopped. Her hands shook, causing the contents of her tray to rattle. She bit her lip to stop herself from crying. What good would crying do her now?

The way to her room took her right past the infirmary. It was okay as long as she didn't look inside, right? She didn't have to look at anything. All she had to do was look straight ahead as if nothing was there but a blank wall.

However…when the time came, she gave in to her curiosity and looked inside out of the corner of her eye. She expected to see what she'd seen for the entire month, the body of a dark-haired, gray-eyed, Japanese exorcist lying motionless in one of the beds with an IV in his arm. But what she saw wasn't that someone lying in bed.

He was standing up. The IV was hanging from the bag it was attached to, small drops of blood from his arm dripping onto the floor. He was wrapping bandages around his chest to cover his tattoo. He didn't look dead or dying. He looked as if nothing had happened, as if he'd just woken up from a nap.

The sound of something crashing to the floor grabbed Kanda's attention and made him turn around. All he saw was a broken bowl and a cup rolling around on the floor, their contents spilled everywhere. He heard footsteps running away from the infirmary. Curious, he stuck his head outside and looked in the direction of where he last heard the footsteps, but whoever it was had already vanished.

"YUU!" Lavi shouted when he saw Kanda enter the dining hall.

Kanda sweatdropped, holding his tray in his hands. Then he shook his head a couple of times and walked over to where Lavi was sitting. The minute he put the tray down, Lavi flung himself at him.

"Lavi, what the hell!" he shouted, "Get off me!"

"Oh come on, don't be so cold!" Lavi replied, faking a sad puppy face, "It's been a whole month since you were put in the infirmary!"

The silence that responded to his statement made Lavi let go and stand back. Kanda wore a look of disbelief on his face.

"…A month?!"

"Yeah…you were unconscious for a month. They said your heart didn't start beating again until two days after you were injured."

Kanda put a hand to his forehead. _My heart stopped beating for three days? How am I still alive after that?_

He sat down at the table. Allen and Lenalee moved closer. "Are you alright, Kanda?" Lenalee asked.

"Who brought me here?"

Allen blinked. "Er, General Tiedoll and Marie, I think."

"Yeah, they took you to a village in Romania until the medical team came and got you. Sayaka came back to the Order ahead of you guys and told Komui and the Great Generals what happened." Lavi added.

"Komui tried to keep the details a secret, but…" Lenalee nodded in the direction of the others in the dining hall, who were watching out of the corners of their eyes, "someone leaked it out, and now everyone's spreading these horrible rumors."

Kanda looked at her, his eyebrow rising. "Rumors? Like what?"

"They've said that…that Sayaka let you get hurt by that akuma." Allen answered in a small voice.

"Who said that? Which one?"

"That's the thing, Yuu," Lavi said, "_Everyone_ is saying it. We can't tell which one started it."

Just as they were talking, a group of both exorcists and finders approached the table timidly. Kanda looked at them with a cold stare.

"We, um…" one finder said first, "We heard about what happened and we were just wondering…is it true?"

Kanda's eyes narrowed. "Is what true?"

"Did that female exorcist really let the akuma get you?"

"If that were true, don't you think I'd be dead right now?" he replied shortly.

Everyone shut up.

"Does anyone else have some sort of ridiculous garbage to tell me? Or is that the extent of it?"

Lavi, Lenalee and Allen were watching, both amazed and slightly puzzled by his reaction. Was Kanda actually defending Sayaka?

"So…she's _not_ a traitor?"

When Kanda said no more, Lavi took the stage. "Of course not, you idiot. If she were a traitor, she would've become a Fallen One. Now why don't you all go back to your food and leave the man alone?"

Taking a hint, the group began to disperse. Lavi sat back down, shooting a smile at Kanda.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked.

"Nice defense back there, Yuu. I think you finally got through to them."

Kanda didn't look up. He knew that Lenalee and Allen would be smiling at him too. He knew what they were thinking. They thought that he'd defended Sayaka just now, but all he felt he was doing was putting a rumor to rest. Although, that didn't stop him from thinking about her. Was Sayaka the one who dropped that tray in front of the infirmary and ran off? If so, why?

"Kanda."

He looked up to see Marie standing there. Kanda nodded at him.

"The General is away, but I was hoping that I could talk with you for a moment, if you're done eating." He said.

Kanda again nodded, leaving his tray and getting up. The two walked out of the dining hall and went down an empty corridor.

"I'm glad to see you on your feet again." Marie said.

"You know I don't go down that easily, Marie." Kanda replied shortly.

The taller exorcist nodded. "Yes…well, I suppose it could've been avoided if we'd all gone with you. Forgive me, Kanda."

Kanda stopped. "Marie, you're talking nonsense. You were only doing what the General told you to do, as was I. It wasn't anyone's fault. Besides, it's better that we stayed, especially now that we know that this Thrax is an akuma."

"…" Marie paused for a moment, looking at his comrade. Then he said, "I wonder why she didn't kill it. I suppose…she figured your welfare was more important."

The dark-haired exorcist sighed, walking ahead. "There you go again, Marie."

"Kanda, you know I'm right. On the related subject," Marie followed him, "Sayaka's taken this the hardest out of all of us."

He halted again, but did not turn around. "What do you mean?"

"Well…I thought maybe it was just the rumors at first, but now I think it was more about what happened to you. She's been in her room for this entire month, and I suspect she'll stay there for the next two months as well. Today was the first time I'd seen her with food—"

"What do you mean, 'the next two months'?" Kanda cut him off, "She's not been shirking her duties, has she?"

Marie looked at him. "No, you see…Komui suspended her from duty for three months."

That did it. "What?"


	5. Part 5: A Kiss

Part Five: A Kiss

**Part Five****: A Kiss**

Lenalee walked out of the dining hall, bidding goodbye to Lavi and Allen. She looked around the outside corridor for a moment. "I wonder where Kanda and Marie went?"

"Lenalee!"

She turned to see Sayo running up to her, her slightly big coat dragging on the ground.

"Sayo chan. How are you?"

"I'm okay, but…Sayaka ran outside and hasn't come back in yet," she said, "And, I mean, it's getting dark out and the wind's picking up. I don't want her to get stuck out there."

Lenalee started to look worried. "Didn't you tell her that?"

Hoshino came up behind his sister. "We both tried, but she just wouldn't listen. She said she wasn't coming back in until she cleared her head."

Now she was really worried. What if she tried to jump off the cliff and end her life? Quickly, she asked Sayo and Hoshino to help her look for Kanda, and the three of them ran around the castle, looking in every corridor.

Finally, they found him standing by himself near one of the balconies. He looked up when he heard footsteps approaching.

"What's with you?" he asked.

"Kanda! We found you!" Sayo answered, running up to him and hugging him around the waist.

Hoshino nodded. "Hey."

"Kanda, I need your help. Sayo told me that Sayaka won't come inside. From what she's told me, it sounds like she might try to jump off the cliff!" Lenalee told him quickly.

Sayo nodded fervently. "She looked all pale and her eyes were so blank…it was scary!"

"That's…" Kanda was about to say that that was ridiculous, but then again, it wasn't impossible. After a month of isolating herself, he was surprised that she didn't do anything sooner.

He agreed to go out and find her. Hastily, he went out into the cold winds as darkness began to settle. Lenalee told him that she would order the guard watching the gate not to close it until they'd returned.

He didn't understand. Why would Sayaka kill herself? She couldn't have been that foolish, could she? He hoped not. He knew what her reason would be, but he tried not to think about that. Running into the woods, he stopped in a clearing and closed his eyes. He concentrated on every sound out there, trying to pinpoint her location from where he was.

The wind was louder than anything else, but Kanda strained to listen through it. He was still slightly weak.

"Crunch…crunch…crunch…"

Someone was coming this way, walking through the piles of fallen leaves. Kanda opened his eyes and saw Sayaka entering the clearing where he was. The minute she saw him, she stopped, her eyes wide.

_Hoshino was right, she is pale. She looks like SHE should've been the one in the infirmary_, he thought.

He opened his mouth to say something to her, but she took off running like a bat out of hell before he could get one word out. Immediately, he ran after her.

Sayaka's breath was short, as if she'd been running out there the whole time. Her steps were gradually slowing down. Kanda was a lot faster than her, and he finally caught up with her, getting one hand on her shoulder and turning her around.

"EEK!" she cried out, losing her balance and falling onto the ground in front of him.

Kanda attempted to pull her up, but when he did, she looked away, her eyes shut tightly.

He sighed. "Stop being like that. Look at me."

She hesitated. Then slowly, she opened them. Her eye makeup was smeared all over her face where she'd wiped her eyes.

"What are you running away for? I figured you'd at least be relieved."

Sayaka looked down. "I am…I'm more than relieved…" she said in a tiny voice, "But…I didn't think you'd be happy with me when you woke up."

Kanda didn't reply to that.

So, she continued, "I don't understand…why did the General tell you to come back? Why didn't you stay with them?"

"You would've died back there, and then Thrax would've been a threat to the rest of the Order."

"But," she looked up, "I told you how dangerous he was. I didn't want this to happen! That's the reason why I requested to wait for him alone! I was the one he wanted, not you!" her fists clenched, "Why didn't you run when I told you to run? Then maybe Thrax wouldn't have…"

She turned away. The last thing she wanted was for Kanda to see her cry. "He could've killed you…he almost did…"

"But he didn't." Kanda replied. "Don't blame this on the General. He didn't know, just like you didn't know."

"I'm not blaming him or anyone else!" she shouted, turning around, "None of this would've happened if I'd killed Thrax the night I decided to leave him! He wouldn't have come back for me and you wouldn't have been so close to dying!"

"You _are_ blaming someone. You're blaming yourself."

There was a silence before Sayaka said, "I'm sorry, Kanda…I'm sorry I let him hurt you…I'm sorry you were dragged into my problem."

Nighttime had completely fallen. The wind started to die down a little. Kanda couldn't believe what he was hearing. No one had ever apologized to him like this before. He couldn't really think of what to say in reply to that.

"Why would you apologize for something like that?"

She looked at him. "What do you mean, 'why'?"

Kanda looked right back at her. "…You're so damn confusing. The first time we met, you slapped me and said you hated me, then you tried protecting me, and now you're apologizing?"

Sayaka sighed, coming closer. "I _don't_ hate you. I've _never_ hated you, stupid."

She started to walk back to the castle. Kanda followed her. When they got inside, Gatekeeper closed the front gates and for a moment, the two exorcists remained in the front entrance, alone.

After a minute of complete and annoying silence, Kanda started to turn to walk away, considering the matter over and done with and assuming she didn't want to talk to him anymore.

"Kanda, wait a minute."

"What?"

Suddenly, he felt warmth around him. Someone's hands were on either side of his head, their weight forcing his back to the wall. Someone's lips were crushed against his own. His eyes were wide open the whole time, and only afterward did he realize what had just occurred.

Sayaka stood back, letting him go. Her face was red. She didn't look pale or sickly anymore. When she saw that Kanda wasn't going to move, she turned and ran down the hallway, her heels clicking wildly against the stone floors as she escaped to her room. Kanda didn't move from the wall. Instead, he slid down until he was slumped on the ground, his legs pulled in so his knees were at shoulder level.

She had just kissed him.

**Two weeks later…**

"It's been a month already? Funny, it hasn't felt like one…" Sayaka said to Allen's comment one day at dinner.

Allen shrugged. "Well, you were kind of secluded that whole time, so I suppose it didn't feel like a month to you."

Lenalee nudged him. "Allen, you'll spend an hour eating and say that it felt like only five minutes."

Everyone at the table (Lavi, Krory, Allen, Lenalee, Miranda, and Sayaka FYI) laughed at Lenalee's comment. Allen blushed and kept eating in silence. Sayaka patted him on the head.

"Relax, Allen. Lenalee was kidding. You're probably right." She said.

Lavi waved at her. "C'mon, you know it's true. Let him be teased."

Krory took a drink from his cup. "By the way, are you still suspended, Sayaka?"

She nodded. "Yeah…it's getting boring. I have nothing to do. I mean, I can't use my weapons, so training is a big no, and that goes for my Innocence too, which is too bad. I kind of wanted to test out my level two attack again…on less savage terms, I promise." She reassured everyone, seeing the looks they were giving her.

"Well, if you want, you can lend me a hand in the library," Lavi suggested, "I've got a million-bajillion books to put away. Komui won't object to that, will he?"

"He shouldn't," Lenalee replied, "I'd help too, but I promised Komui that I'd look at something with him."

Miranda turned to her. "What, like a mission he wants you to go on?"

"No, but it's something urgent, I can tell. He was unusually serious when he told me about it, and he was short on details."

"What else is new?" Allen rolled his eyes.

Sayaka remained silent. She had a gut feeling that whatever Komui had planned on showing Lenalee had something to do with her.

"So, you up for it, Sayaka?"

"Sure. I'll help."

The rumors had steadily begun to decrease after Kanda recovered. Sayaka was convinced that whatever he did shut them up. She never actually found out what he did, but figured that if it was something big, she would've heard about it by now. She was about to get up from the table, when she felt weight on her shoulders.

"Hi, Sayo."

"Aww, you don't get scared anymore!"

"Well, you're the only one who does that. If you wanted me to be scared, you should've gotten Hoshino to do it."

Hoshino came over and sat next to Miranda. "Bite me."

Sayaka stuck her tongue out at him. Sayo let her go and sat next to her.

"Hey, has anyone seen Kanda around? We can't find him anywhere." She asked, taking a huge bite out of her sandwich.

"Yeah, where is Yuu? He hasn't come in here at all for three days now." Lavi put in.

Hoshino replied, "We were supposed to train with him today, but he wasn't at the usual spot outside."

"He went on a surveillance mission with Marie and a couple of Finders," Lenalee said, "and they haven't come back yet. Komui thinks they'll come back tonight at some point."

"That's so like him to not tell us stuff." Sayo mumbled. "But a surveillance mission? That's definitely _not_ like him. There's no killing involved."

Once more, Sayaka had nothing to say. It _was _odd, Sayo was right. But what was even more odd was the fact that a surveillance mission would take this long. Though, the location must have had something to do with that.

After she'd finished eating, she'd gone back up to her room until Lavi came by to go to the library. She sat on her bed, lost deeply in thought. Her mind had drifted back to two weeks earlier, to the night Kanda got out of the infirmary. The night she'd kissed him…

_It'll be hard talking to him after that,_ she said in her mind.

Later, in the library, she watched Lavi balancing a stack of books on his head as he climbed a ladder to one of the higher shelves. An idea came to her, an idea that would take her mind of Kanda for a second.

"So, Lavi," she asked, "How's stuff going with you and Lenalee?"

A couple of books fell to the floor. "Huh? With who and who now?"

"Come on, you know who and who, Lavi."

After placing a book in its place, the redheaded exorcist slid down the ladder and picked up the two books he'd dropped, his cheeks tinted red. "It's no different than the last time we talked about it. She still doesn't know anything and I still don't know anything."

"So you haven't asked Allen for his input, I take it?"

"I can't get the question out. It's tough, it really is. And it's not like I'm not trying."

Sayaka nodded. "No, I know that. But you know, it might be better to tell Lenalee first. If Allen does like her the way you do, he'll get suspicious for the wrong reasons. You don't want that."

Lavi paused for a second, then smiled at her. "You seem to know a lot about relationships, Sayaka. Was there someone in your past you want to mention?" he inched closer teasingly, a goofy grin on his face.

"What? No way!" Sayaka replied, rearing backward, "I'm just pulling this stuff out of the air! I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I was just kidding." Lavi started up the ladder again, giggling to himself.

Sayaka tried to push a book into a tight space on a lower shelf.

"But…if you think that's right, then I'll try to tell her."

She looked up, her eye brightening, "You will?"

"Yeah. Unless you've told her already."

"Uh-uh. I keep my secrets."

"Good. I knew you could be trusted."

After that, not a lot of talking happened. When they'd barely made a dent in the amount of books that needed to be put away, Section Leader Reever came into the library.

"Lavi, Chief Komui wants to talk to you." He said, standing at the base of the ladder.

"Coming!"

"Er, you want me to keep reshelving stuff, Lavi?" Sayaka asked when he came down.

"Sure. Just get your half of the pile done and I'll do the rest when I get back."

After he bade her goodbye and left with Reever, Sayaka turned back to her stacks of books, feeling rather uneasy. Why was everyone going to talk to Komui all of a sudden? It all seemed so secret, like it was something she wasn't meant to know but everyone else could.

_Come to think about it, _she thought, _no one said what Kanda and Marie's mission was about…sure, they were doing surveillance, but what of?_

She wondered if maybe this was all because she was suspended, although it didn't make a lot of sense. It's not like she would go off and tell someone, she had no reason to leave the Order, so why couldn't she know?

"Hey."

She whirled around in surprise. "Kanda?"

The dark-haired exorcist stood in the doorway to the library. "I want to talk to you."

"Oh, uh," she looked from him to her slightly decreased stack of books, "Just let me finish this really quick, I don't have much left."

So, Kanda came in and leaned against one of the shelves, arms crossed, and waited. He was oddly patient. But his presence made the uneasiness go away. Sayaka stuffed the last couple of books in their places on the shelf and then turned to him.

"Okay. What's up?"

"Not here. Follow me."

Now she was a little nervous again. Where were they going?

…_Oh god…he probably wants to talk about that night…_she realized.

By then, they were far away from the library, going up a few flights of stairs. Kanda didn't say anything the whole way, creating an unnerving silence that Sayaka was desperate to break, but she fought to keep quiet, just in case he was angry. It was hard to tell…he always looked angry, even when he wasn't.

Finally, after cutting through five or six different corridors and walking up three flights of spiraling staircases, they reached the rooftop, or a rooftop. There was more than one. The wind was blowing lightly, carrying leaves it had picked up along its journey. Kanda stood close to the edge of the roof, his back to Sayaka.

"Not that it matters, but why all the way up here?" she finally said.

"No one ever comes up here." Kanda replied, "And no one can hear you up here." He turned slightly to look at her. "Why, are you scared of heights?"

She frowned. "No."

_Okay…he's still acting like himself, so I guess he wasn't too freaked out…_

"Why were you in the library just now?"

"Lavi asked me to help him put away all those books. Didn't you see them lying all over the floor?"

After another long silence, Sayaka started to get annoyed, or, more like a combination of annoyed, anxious and impatient. "Kanda, for god's sake, why'd you bring me up here if all you're going to do is stand there with your back to me?"

He turned around, slowly, as if he didn't want to. "…"

It didn't have to be stated in words, of course. When Sayaka saw the look on his face, she knew exactly what he wanted to talk about.

"I see…look, if it is about the…you know…I didn't mean to freak you out."

"Who said I was freaked out?" Kanda replied almost immediately.

"Your eyes were wide open the whole time, even after I let you go. I think that means you were freaked out."

"Maybe I was just surprised. Did you ever think of that?"

"Why are you getting so defensive?"

Kanda scowled. "Just tell me why you did it."

"I don't know, I just did." She saw how agitated he was about this, "If you hated it, just tell me that, jeez."

"I didn't hate it, I just—" he stopped himself.

But Sayaka was already hooked. "You just what?"

"I didn't hate it."

"You said that already."

"That's all."

"Kanda…do you like me?"

"I just said that's all…wait, what?"

She was looking him in the eye. "Do you like me? Even just a little bit?"

Kanda blinked. "Shouldn't I be the one asking that?"

Sayaka crossed her arms over her chest. "Duh, I like you. Just answer the question."

He looked to the side. Did he like her? He wasn't so sure himself. There were times when he felt like he hated her, but then there were other times when he found her to be mildly tolerable, more so than most people. So, he supposed that he did, a little.

"A little…you're tolerable, I guess."

He watched her face go red.

"What's the matter with you? You're tolerable, don't get so excited."

"…So was that it? Is that all you wanted to talk about?"

To her surprise, Kanda shook his head. "I've been told to inform you on your next mission. Just so there won't be any more stupid rumors, I figured telling you here would be better. Komui doesn't want things going out of hand, like before."

"Mission? I'm still suspended!"

"As of now, consider your suspension over."


	6. Part 6: Raid

Part Six: Raid

**New character alert! This chapter is a D Grayman, Osmosis Jones and Peacemaker Kurogane collaboration. I'm still using Thrax and now I am also using Susumu Yamazaki. I do not own any of these or their characters. Hope you enjoy!**

**Part Six****: Raid**

Over the next two hours, or at least that's what it felt like, Kanda told Sayaka the details of the surveillance mission he had just returned from, to show how it was related to her next assignment. He and Marie had been investigating Thrax's hideout in the city, after having been told that Thrax possessed a decent amount of missing Innocence blocks.

"And since you've already been there and know the layout," Kanda concluded, "Komui wants you to go with Lavi to get the Innocence back."

Sayaka was speechless. She had done everything she could to get away from that place and now the Order was asking her to go back? She felt herself start to break out into a cold sweat.

"I'm…" she couldn't finish what she wanted to say. She didn't even remember.

Kanda looked at her. "You're what? Spit it out."

"…Nothing. I'll do it." She wiped the sweat from her face.

"Good. Then go talk to Komui." He turned and headed for the door to the stairway.

Sayaka watched him, not allowing herself to speak anymore. But just before he disappeared, he stopped in front of the door.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

Kanda turned his head slightly. "You aren't afraid, are you?"

It took her a moment to answer. She figured choosing her words carefully was a wise choice. "Of course I am. This is the second scariest thing I've ever had to see or do. But I've got to get over it sometime, right?"

"…Right."

She couldn't get over being scared. No matter how hard she tried, the fear wouldn't dispel. Instead it would sit in her mind, making her nervous at the mere thought of what she had to do.

What made it worse was that Lavi was coming with her. She didn't mind Lavi as a person, but she hadn't forgotten what happened to Kanda yet. Sayaka wished that Komui had asked her to go alone.

It was weird how after what seemed like years, Sayaka could still remember the way to Thrax's hideout. Cut through a back alley, enter the slums, turn right at the torn-down store that lie in a pile of rubble and then keep heading deeper into the unlit streets where the abandoned buildings around you seemed like the walls of a prison cell.

She glanced over at Lavi, who was walking beside her. He seemed nervous, but not scared, most certainly not as scared as she was.

"You're sure this is the way?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Sayaka replied, "I know the way like the back of my hand. We're almost there."

Lavi scratched the side of his head. "This place seems so shady, though…it's hard to believe he'd hide back here."

"He never believed in hiding in plain sight like most akuma do. The way he saw it, the deeper into the shadows you tread, the harder it is for them to find you."

He looked at her, puzzled by her words. "Who's 'them'?"

Sayaka shivered. "Us. We're 'them' now."

"Look," Lavi stopped and turned towards her, "I know this is hard for you, but just remember why you fight. Thrax is an akuma, and if we don't do something about him, he'll hurt more people like that man on the railroad tracks."

She nodded, trying to make it seem like she understood as they continued walking. But Sayaka wasn't so sure why she was fighting. It wasn't really for Sayo, because she wasn't a part of this anymore. After a moment's thought, she came to a conclusion. "I'm going to fight for you and Lenalee, Lavi."

Lavi's face flushed. "Huh?!"

"I mean…if something happens to you, Lenalee will never know the truth, right?" she smiled at him.

The redhead calmed down. "Right…don't worry, nothing'll happen to me."

"Right…" _Not if I have anything to say about it,_ she thought.

Halfway there, now…already, the screams and cries of the akuma could be heard, rising as high as the buildings, reaching for the sky. Sayaka's fists clenched. She tried to sum it all up, what she had to do, and make it seem easy. All they had to do was go in and try not to get noticed, get the Innocence, which was in the hidden drawer under Thrax's desk (having seen him place it there every time she gave him an Innocence), then try to slip out, again trying not to get noticed.

They were across the street now. Thinking quickly, Sayaka grabbed Lavi's arm and pulled him into an alley across the way.

"Alright, before we do anything, we have to decide how we're gonna do it." She said.

Lavi nodded. "Yeah, so let's think about what stuff Kanda and Marie found out. They said that Thrax has been gone for at least a month. So far, he hasn't been back yet. They aren't sure where he is, and the only akuma he has in the building are a bunch of Level Ones."

"And a bunch of 'tough' humans, I bet," Sayaka nodded, "They're for cover in case anyone actually _did _decide to snoop around."

"Other than us, you mean."

"Yeah, like the police or something."

Lavi paused for a minute, glancing over his shoulder. "If we go in together, there may be a good chance that we'll get noticed, but on the other hand, there's less of a chance of one of us getting killed behind the other's back."

"I suppose taking a risk is part of the job, and having one person stay behind wouldn't be a risk, would it?"

The redhead smiled. "No, it wouldn't."

Sayaka looked him dead in the eye. "I know the way to Thrax's room from the back door. Let's go."

Quickly, the two exorcists slipped to the back of the building and went inside. Immediately, they hugged the wall, one hand lingering near their weapons. Voices, human voices, could be heard everywhere in the building, mostly from upstairs, it seemed. Sayaka tried to listen. There were those weird akuma cries too…

"It sounds like they're all on the second floor." She said after a moment, "So we'll have to be more careful up there."

"Where's the target room?"

"On the fourth floor. If we run into anyone, I can knock them out with one of these," she held up a small, almost needle-like kunai.

"Let's keep going."

Sayaka led Lavi carefully to the staircase. Once they were there, they each got on either wall leading up, leaning against the railing as the climbed the stairs. The voices grew louder. It sounded like the people were having a party or something. Upon reaching the top, Lavi craned his neck and looked into the hallway to see if anyone was out there. He discovered that everyone was in a larger room next to the staircase. The door was propped open.

"They're all in one room," he whispered, flattening against the wall again, "and the hallway's clear."

"The other staircase is at the end of the hallway. It'll go all the way up to the top of the building, so we won't have to worry about sneaking through another floor."

"It sounds like they're playing a recording of akuma cries! It must be to scare others away."

Sayaka sweatdropped. "Such idiots…"

It was too easy. They didn't even need to run past the room as fast as they did, for the people inside didn't notice them, probably couldn't hear them. Sayaka's heart thumped in her chest. This was very similar to her last mission, when Baxter made it all so easy at first.

Lavi reached the staircase first, and Sayaka followed him, pausing at the bottom for a moment. She shook her head roughly. She wasn't about to let it end up like last time. She wasn't going to let Thrax or anyone get Lavi.

If she did…there was no way she could face Kanda ever again. Her recently discovered feelings for him would mean nothing.

"What's the matter?" Lavi called down to her.

She started to climb the stairs. "Nothing…I was just listening to make sure we weren't followed."

When she reached him, she saw that Lavi was staring at her in an odd manner, almost like he was studying her. Then he smiled and continued up the stairs. "Sayaka…you like Yu, don't you?"

The heat rose in her cheeks faster than humidity in the summer. "What!?"

"They way you looked just now…it was similar to the way you look sometimes when you're around him and how you looked when he was in the infirmary."

She had nothing to say.

"Fourth floor, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Okay. Let's get the Innocence and get out of here!"

Ever since she left, Kanda couldn't really think straight. He could only keep his mind on his training or his meditation for about half the time. Then he would get lost in thought and just stop in the middle of what he was doing.

One day, he got so frustrated about it, that he sliced right through one of the trees and watched it fall. He yanked off his blindfold just as the tree hit the ground with an earth-shaking crash. Slowly, as the stillness resumed, he resheathed his sword, trying to lower the anger inside of him.

_Sayaka's driving me crazy…_he thought sourly, _I can't concentrate on anything!_

He looked down at his abdomen. Thrax's claw marks were fading finally, after being there for another month or so.

Thrax…

"She'd better not let that thing get Lavi." He muttered.

"Jesus Christ…look at it all!"

"I didn't know he had _this _many. I think I only brought him about three of these…"

Sayaka and Lavi had long since reached Thrax's office. To their surprise, there was more than "a few" Innocence blocks hidden in the secret drawer (like fifteen or so). The two exorcists were just sitting on the floor in the dark, goggling at it.

"How long has he had all of this?" Lavi asked.

"I don't know," Sayaka shrugged, "Probably since I left. But we've been staying here long enough. C'mon," she stood up, "Let's get going."

"Y-Yeah," he followed suit.

Suddenly, he halted, a sound reaching his ears. He looked at Sayaka and saw that she had heard it too. Their eyes traveled to the door. There was a tall shadow in the hallway, coming towards the room. They couldn't tell if it was Thrax or one of his men.

Lavi fingered his weapon. He motioned to Sayaka to hide the Innocence in her coat. She didn't need him to tell her twice, dropping the bag into her inner coat pocket. She already had a kunai in one hand, a faint green glow around it. The shadow stopped moving a foot or so from the doorway.

"…Put your weapons down and hold your hands up," said the shadow, "If we're quiet, no one outside will hear you."

Sayaka's eyes widened. _I know that voice._

She nodded to Lavi when he looked to her, and they both replaced their weapons in their holsters and held up their hands.

The shadow started to move again, and then it was looming in the doorway in full form. Slowly, the shadow became a person, wearing shinobi attire and had most of its face covered in black cloth. He had the same knives as Sayaka.

"I was wondering when the exorcists were going to get here." The person said.

Sayaka nearly dropped her hands. "S…Susumu?"

Lavi looked from her to the person. "Who are you?"

The person pulled the cloth away from the bottom half of his face. "Yamazaki Susumu. I used to work for Thrax."

"Are you still working for him?"

"I came to warn you. Thrax is on his way here right now. If he finds you two, he'll probably kill you both."

"You didn't answer my question!"

"Lavi, please, keep your voice down," Sayaka said, "We can trust him."

Lavi looked at her. "How can you be sure?"

"I know him."

Susumu came closer. "I can show you a way out, but we have to move quickly."

Sayaka started to move forward. "Come on, Lavi. Let's go back."

The redhead sighed. Then he slowly followed as Susumu led them down the corridor to another set of stairs. They were two floors from the roof. Once they started climbing the stairs, Lavi decided that it was time to figure out what was going on.

"Sayaka," he said quietly, but loud enough so that she and Susumu could hear him, "Tell me something, just so I can get it out of my mind. How do you know this guy?"

Sayaka didn't answer right away. She looked at Susumu, who was looking back at them over his shoulder while climbing the stairs. "Like he said, he used to work for Thrax like I did. He taught me pretty much everything I know. But not too long after I became human, Susumu left."

"Left?"

**FLASHBACK**

"_Hm? Susumu, what are you doing in here?" Sayaka looked up in the process of sharpening her blades. _

_Susumu closed the door quietly behind him. Then he started to walk towards the window. He was holding a duffel bag in his hand. "Sayaka, haven't you wondered why your blades glow whenever you kill a target?"_

_She looked at him, puzzled. "Well, yeah, but what's that got to do with—"_

"_Or why the targets always explode or turn to ash?"_

"_Yes, I have, but no one can give me a straight answer. It's like no one knows."_

_He looked at her. "Thrax knows. He's just not telling you."_

_She stood up, placing her blade down on her bed. "Susumu, what's going on? Why are you all packed up like that? You're not leaving… are you?"_

_Susumu just stared at her silently. He didn't need to say anything. Sayaka's mouth dropped open. "You _are _leaving. But what if he catches you?"_

"_Oh, he's known that I was planning on leaving for a long time now. I hate him. I can't stand working for him. I can't stand being in this place anymore."_

_Sayaka's face became sad. "But what am I going to do without you? You're the only person I can relate to! Who's going to train me?"_

_He opened the window and stepped out onto the roof. "You don't need training, you need answers. When you get those, you'll see things the way I see them now."_

_Though her eyes protested, he still gave her one last small smile. "Maybe I'll see you again someday."_

_Before Sayaka knew it, Susumu was gone. _

**END FLASHBACK**

Susumu spoke next. "I figured that the Order would get wind of Sayaka once she found out that she was an accommodator, so I kept slight track of her movements until she was taken there."

"But how can I know that you aren't taking us to Thrax right now?" Lavi asked, eyeing the shinobi carefully, "I think even Sayaka is having some slight doubt."

Sayaka looked at him sharply, but her eyes didn't match her expression. Her eyes showed worry. Susumu halted at the top of the stairs and turned to face both exorcists. His face made them falter slightly.

"I hate Thrax more than I've ever hated anything before in my life. Why would I give him the satisfaction of taking you two to him now?"

No reply came to either of the exorcists' minds. They followed silently as they ascended the final flight of stairs. The door to the roof was just ahead.

"Besides, I'd rather see him fail for once, at the hands of one of his former servants, no less." He added, grasping the handle of the door.

Lavi climbed the last step and replied, "I'm sorry. It's just that I have a habit of not trusting everyone right away. Ever since the war, that's what I've been doing, and that's what's kept me alive."

Susumu turned around. "I understand. I've worked the same way too. So has Sayaka."

Sayaka began to smile, but it faded when voices reached them. She looked over the railing. "We left the door open down there…!"

No one moved. They strained to hear what the voices were saying.

"But we didn't hear anything! No footsteps or nothin'!" a man said, sounding like he was protesting.

"Then how'd my office door get unlocked?" Thrax's voice sent chills down Sayaka's spine.

"I don't know, Boss. Seriously, I don't kno—AAUGH!"

A gunshot echoed through. The three jumped.

"Someone tell me why the fuck my door's unlocked!"

"B-Boss…your stash is gone."

Sayaka stepped back from the railing. Footsteps started running towards the open door downstairs. She whirled around. "Let's go."

Susumu nodded, pulling open the door and leading them out to the roof. "We'll have to jump to the next building if we want to get away."

"Wait, why don't I just extend my hammer? We'll get away much quicker!" Lavi suggested, holding his already invoked hammer up.

"They'll pick up on our trail if we do that," Susumu replied, "Which one of you has 'it'?"

"I do," Sayaka answered, patting the lump in the side of her coat.

"Let's spread out in different directions. They don't who has it, and as far as I can tell, they don't know that an exorcist was in there." He said, turning to the right.

Lavi headed straight ahead of them. "That's as good of a plan as any. We'll use our golems to meet up again later, okay Sayaka?"

She nodded, clenching her hand around her coat sleeve. She hoped that no one had figured out that they were there. Then she turned and took the left, figuring that it made more sense than backtracking the way that they had come. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Lavi had put a good distance between them. She could feel Susumu way behind her, going in the opposite direction. Even though this wasn't the best situation for a reunion, she was glad to see him.

Once Lavi was out of sight, Sayaka started running faster. Once she'd gotten a few miles away, she took out her golem and turned it on.

"Lavi, can you hear me?" she said as she ran.

"Loud and clear!" his voice replied.

"Anyone following you?"

"Not a soul. Susumu is sort of going my way. After he got a few buildings in his direction, he hanged a left and started running in my direction." He paused, "I just waved to him to let you know that you're alright. You are alright, right?"

She fought down a giggle. "Fine. I'm pretty far away now. Think it's safe to meet up?"

"I guess so, if neither of us is being followed."

"Okay…there's a park about two miles to your right. I'll meet you there in five min…" she skidded to a stop as she landed on another rooftop.

"Say again? Sayaka?" Lavi started sounding nervous. "Oi, are you there?"

Thrax was waiting for her on the opposite end of the roof.

Further away, Lavi stopped. "Sayaka, answer me! What's wrong? Are you there?"

There was a much fainter voice on Sayaka's end, but it wasn't hers. He shivered uncomfortably, turning his golem off and putting it away. Then he sucked in his breath and yelled as loudly as his lungs would allow. "SUSUMU! WHERE'D YOU GO? SAYAKA NEEDS HELP!"

Meanwhile… "You've got a lot of nerve, Sayaka. You know that?"

She didn't answer. She silently hoped that he hadn't noticed the lump in her side.

Thrax started to walk slowly toward her. "I wasn't aware that the Black Order was doubling as a theft organization."

"I…" she stammered, "I'm not the thief here. The Innocence doesn't belong to you."

"Then who does it belong to, baby? Those two brats you love so much? Or does it belong to your boyfriend?"

She clenched her fists. "They have nothing to do with this."

"You know, until you yanked off my hand," he held up his stump of a left arm, "I hadn't ever dreamed of killing you. The thought never even crossed my mind."

Sayaka's eyes widened. Then she smiled at him, feeling a bit more confident. "Kill me? _Moi_? That's funny, because Baxter told me once that I was your…oh, what was it… 'little princess', I believe?"

_Damn Baxter…_Thrax thought venomously.

"H-Heh…heh heh heh…heh heh…"

Laughing…she was laughing at him!

"Heh, c-come on, Thrax, this is the first time you've had me all to yourself in so long. You wanna just end it now? That's not like you."

He glared at her, now becoming angry. "Don't push it, girl, I'll cut you open."

Sayaka kept laughing. "Cut me open? Ha, that's funny. I didn't know you had such a sense of humor. You can't kill me. You love me too much, Thrax."

He was scowling right into her face, his anger and fury surging through him as if it were the very blood in his veins.

"You're pathetic." She went on, "You love me so much, even though you're an akuma and you know it wouldn't go anywhere. You love me so much that you can't bring yourself to do what you want to do to me."

There was a long silence as she waited for his reply. Then she saw a blood-red aura emanating from his body.

"Baby…you shouldn't…I made you and I can just as easily _unmake_ you." he hissed in a deadly whisper.

But Sayaka tried to hold her ground as best she could. She tried to think of a good way to get away from him, but the only thing that came to mind was falling off of the building, which was a dumb idea. If she tried running past him, it would've been like asking him to kill her off. She started to get nervous again. Lavi must have realized something was wrong by now, so where was he? She didn't want to count on someone coming to rescue her, but at the moment, it would've helped immensely.

Thrax started to stretch out his right hand towards her. His claws were mere inches away from her face. There was no way for her to take out a kunai or shiriken without getting noticed. She inched slowly backward, not realizing how close to the edge of the roof she was. Time slowed down as Thrax's hand came closer and closer. And then…

…a kunai came flying in out of nowhere and hit Thrax in the wrist. He screamed in pain, looking up to see who'd thrown it. Sayaka felt gravity pulling her backward. She saw Susumu on a building to her right. He had thrown the kunai to distract Thrax, but he was too far away to catch Sayaka before she started to fall.

"….tend, extend, EXTEND, _EXTEND!_"

Lavi shot through on his hammer and grabbed Sayaka. The scene behind them grew smaller and smaller until it shrank and disappeared altogether. Before it did, you could just make out Thrax and Susumu lunging at each other.

"S…Susumu!" Sayaka cried out.

They didn't stop moving until they were outside the city limits. There, Lavi stopped extending the hammer and jumped to the ground, letting go of Sayaka. She lost her balance and fell butt first to the ground.

"Ah, sorry," Lavi smiled sheepishly, deactivating his Innocence and placing the hammer back in its holster, "That can happen sometimes."

Sayaka couldn't speak. She was trying to catch her breath. Lavi plopped down onto the ground in front of her.

"Well, that couldn't have worked out better if we'd planned it, eh?"

Sayaka gasped. "I…I g-guess…but what about Susumu?"

"Oh, I think he's okay. See, he came up with the idea of me grabbing you off the roof while he distracted Big Red up there," he nodded in the direction they'd come from, "And at first, I was like, 'But won't that be risky? Thrax could kill you as easily as he could kill _us_', but he said that he wasn't going to attack Thrax for real. He was making it look like that so we could make a speedy getaway."

"…Heh, that's Susumu for you." Sayaka sighed in relief, "he knows his own limitations as well as he knows his enemy's. That may have been the reason why Thrax made him."

She pulled the bag with the Innocence in it and handed it to Lavi. He took it, stood, and helped her off the ground. Then they began walking back to the rendezvous point they'd set up with a finder prior to the mission. From there, they would return to the Order.

"Mission accomplished." Lavi said cheerfully. "And don't worry…I'll keep your secret about Yu since you've kept mine."

Sayaka smiled thankfully, looking up at the night sky. It was a clear night tonight. All of a sudden, she saw someone leaping through the air and disappearing like an illusion. Her smile grew wider.

"Yeah…mission accomplished."


	7. Part Seven: Down Time

Part Seven: Down Time

**Part Seven****: Down Time**

**A week later…**

It was a particularly nice day outside. It was rare that a day like this ever graced the Black Order with its presence…a clear sky, a near-perfect temperature, and a light wind. After Sayaka and Lavi had returned from recovering the Innocence Thrax had taken, the akuma grew quiet. No reports of attacks came in. Every exorcist and finder that lived in the Order returned, injured or otherwise. The workload in the science section was steadily becoming lighter and lighter.

For a time, things were decent, even good.

Very little happened in the Order when things were this calm. The occupants did one of three things: eat, sleep, or train. The first two were the most popular.

Sayaka decided to walk around the grounds, wondering how the hell Lavi figured out her secret. Was it really written on her face the whole time, or was she just too easy to read altogether? It was baffling. But she knew that she could trust Lavi. After all, he trusted her with his feelings for Lenalee, so maybe it was his way of saying "thanks".

After coming to that conclusion, Sayaka's thoughts wondered to what had happened merely days ago. Susumu had reappeared to her. But though he had shown the way out, Thrax still cut her off at the roof. If Lavi hadn't activated his Innocence…was Susumu still working for Thrax? Had his disappearance a year ago merely been an act?

_No…there was fear in his eyes, I could see it,_ she thought, _He couldn't have been acting. He must've returned for some reason…_

Sayaka stopped in her tracks. She looked up at the sky through the trees. Maybe Susumu was on her side after all. He must have already known all along that she was going to leave Thrax the way he had.

SHNK…

A tree fell somewhere ahead of her. The ground trembled as it hit the ground. Sayaka blinked, and then sighed.

"Either there's a carpenter around here," she muttered, going forward on her path, "Or Kanda's out here training."

There was a downward incline up ahead, almost like a pit in the ground. That was where she found the dark haired exorcist, slicing lethally at the air. For a second, she thought that she was seeing things. Was he blindfolded? She squinted, stopping next to a tree.

_Nope, I'm seeing right. He's blindfolded._

Kanda kicked off on another tree trunk, leaping across the space to another and doing the same thing until he was practically above the treetops. He brought Mugen up, then delivered a vertical slice in the air. Sayaka swore that she could feel the force off of that one from where she was. Then she saw that one of the branches of the tree she was behind fall to the ground…then another one.

_Don't move. _

He landed on the ground like a cat. "Who's there?"

Sayaka said nothing. She was intimidated.

Kanda pulled the blindfold up on one eye. "I know you're there."

"Who said I'm hiding?" she replied.

"…What are _you_ doing here?"

She came out from behind the tree. "I heard a tree fall, so I came to see why it fell."

Kanda resheathed Mugen. "You haven't been here long, then?"

"No. I didn't mean to distract you. I've just never seen you practice before."

His eyebrow rose. "What's to see?"

"Quit making this feel awkward, will you? I was just being curious."

He started to come toward her. "Lavi tells me the mission was almost uneventful."

Sayaka didn't need to ask what he meant. "Yes…if we hadn't been dawdling, we probably would've gotten out without seeing neither hide nor hair of Thrax, but…that's what we get."

"Lavi said Thrax pushed you off the roof."

She sweatdropped, looking off to the side. "Er, well…not exactly." Seeing Kanda's expression, she proceeded to explain what she meant, "You see, Thrax was reaching out to me _like_ he was going to push me off, but I was on the edge of the roof, and—"

"I get it. You fell off."

"Yeah. So you can say whatever you want, but I didn't drop the Innocence when I fell. We brought it back to the Order and that's all that mat…matters." She was close to stopping in mid sentence.

Kanda stared right back at her, not realizing that the bandages on his chest had fallen off until the fell in a heap around his feet. He looked down. "…Damn it."

His tattoo was in full view. The last time Sayaka had seen it, it had been glowing red. At the moment, however, it was ebony black. She couldn't stop herself from staring. Kanda snatched up his coat and pulled it on, scowling.

Sayaka blinked, looking away. "…It's not glowing anymore."

"It hasn't been for a while now. Where were you?" he replied, walking past her.

She followed. "Look, gimme a break. It could've been worse."

"Let's not go there." He replied shortly.

"…So," she looked down at the ground as she spoke, "Any more thought about what we were discussing before I left?"

Kanda gave her a sideways glance, and then stared straight ahead as he answered, "That depends. Are you going to answer my question?"

"Question?"

"The 'why'."

"Oh…right."

He smirked. "I'll take that as a no."

"…Do I really have to say it?"

Kanda stopped and looked over his shoulder. Sayaka's face was red. His eyes narrowed. "Yes. Make me believe it."

Sayaka bit her bottom lip, then looked to see that no one was around or coming in their direction. Taking tentative steps, she approached him. Then, when she was close enough, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him close. She felt him tense as she lowered her mouth to whisper in his ear.

"I love you"

It was said so softly, you wouldn't have thought Kanda had heard it. But he did, without a doubt. He was no longer tense. His muscles relaxed and he just stood there, waiting for Sayaka to move. She was a little afraid to move, afraid of what sort of look was on his face when she did. But she could feel that he was getting impatient, so she forced herself to move and let him go, stepping back. It was hard to tell exactly what his expression meant.

"…I hope that was enough to make you believe it."

Kanda found his voice. "Why?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Why do you love me?"

"I don't know…I just do. Don't tell me I need a reason too."

He lowered his head so that his bangs were in front of his eyes. Sayaka faltered, seeing Kanda do that. "Wh…What's wrong?" When he wouldn't reply, she started walking away. "Look…just forget it. Forget I said it."

Kanda picked his head back up. "You didn't let me say anything."

"You didn't have to."

She met Lavi later on as she walked back to her room after dinner. "Oh…I didn't see you there."

The redhead smiled. "Always seem to have that effect. What's with the serious face, Sayaka?"

Sayaka shrugged. "Nothing…I'm just sort of tired."

Lavi walked alongside her. "So…got some good news for ya."

"What might that be?"

"I told her, Sayaka. I told Lenalee."

She stopped and looked at him, excited. "Really? You did?!"

"Yep," he smiled.

"And? _And_? What did she say?"

Lavi merely smiled at her, scratching the back of his head awkwardly, like he was too embarrassed to say it. Sayaka's excited grin grew wider and she started jumping up and down.

"She likes you too, doesn't she?!" she gushed.

"Uh huh…but we can't tell Komui, got it?"

Sayaka stopped jumping. "Eh? Why not?"

"Well, er…" he held his hands out, motioning them according to his words as he spoke, "Y'know how Komui reacts when we wake up him with the usual 'Lenalee's getting married' thing?"

"Yes…?"

"We're a little afraid that he'll do that, only worse because it's for real."

"But Lavi, you're not getting _married_. And you're trustworthy."

"And Komui's thickheaded."

Sweatdrop. "Ah, that's true…well then, you can count on me, Lavi. I won't tell a soul, just like before."

Lavi sighed in relief. "Much obliged, Sayaka. With you and Allen, that makes two."

"Allen knows too?"

"Yup. Apparently, Lenalee had been confiding in him. Funny, huh? Then when I tell Yu, that'll be three."

Sayaka looked away. Of course, she almost forgot that Lavi and Kanda were friends. Lavi noticed her silence, and leaned to the side comically to get a look at her face. "Eh? What's the matter?"

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"Ah, that reminds me. You tell him yet?"

A nod.

"And? What'd he say?"

"…Nothing."

Lavi's face fell. "No way. Not even a word?"

She shook her head again.

"Well…I suppose it was a tad awkward. But seriously, it's not like you told him during a mission. Though," he looked up, putting a finger to his chin thoughtfully, "It's the first time you ever brought this up, right?"

Sayaka's face flushed. "Well…no. Actually, this was a continuation of a conversation we'd had before this last mission."

"Seriously? So he already knew?"

"…Kind of. I hadn't _told _him until today, but I kind of implied it prior to now."

"What do you mean?"

Her face continued to redden.

Lavi's eyes (or eye) widened. He knew before she'd said it. "You…Sayaka, you kis—"

Sayaka clapped her hand over his mouth before he yelled it out. "Shhh, Lavi!"

He pulled her hand away and said quieter, "When?"

"I don't remember…" she turned away, "Look, the point is I told him and he got this weird look on his face when I did."

"Weird look?"

"Yeah. I couldn't really tell what it meant…I don't wanna talk about it anymore."

"Hey, wait a minute!" she'd started to walk away, "Sayaka, hold on! Just let – uh?"

Sayaka had turned around suddenly. "I'm happy for you and Lenalee, Lavi. Really, I am. But I just want to forget I told him anything, okay? It's kind of obvious that I was rejected."

Then she smiled, and walked back to her room by herself. Lavi watched her until she'd disappeared. He could see right through her smile, could tell that there was sadness behind it that she refused to show. He clenched his fists slightly…even though she was hurt, she was trying to be happy for him.

…_Kanda would be in the dining hall right now, wouldn't he?_ Lavi turned on his heel and headed back from whence he came.

When he got there, he saw that Kanda was one of the few people still in there. Jerry had already closed the kitchen for the evening. He _could_ just go up to him and talk, but that would mean risking one of the other occupants of the dining hall overhearing. Before he knew it, Lavi was standing near the table Kanda was sitting at.

Kanda looked up. "What's with you?"

"Ne, Yu, could I talk to you for a sec?"

"Shoot."

"No, I mean outside of here. It's private."

Kanda eyed him, and then glanced around the hall. There were one or two finders still there. He groaned, standing up. "Fine."

Silently, they walked out of the dining hall and down a corridor to an alcove where no one would happen upon them talking.

Kanda crossed arms. "Alright, what is it?"

Lavi hesitated. "Well…"

"If this is about you and Lenalee, I already know the story."

"Ur?! How do you know already?"

"Lenalee was unusually happy earlier, so I assumed that meant that you told her."

He sighed. No one else had told him. He'd just figured it out. "Right…well, that wasn't what I wanted to talk to you about. I was wondering, did Sayaka tell you anything recently?"

The dark haired exorcist went stiff. "What?"

"...Do you know what I'm getting at?"

"She told you, did she?"

Lavi shook his head. "No, I figured it out. You see, she kept my secret, so I kept hers…and well, she was looking really down in the dumps, so I asked what was wrong, and then you can kind of guess the rest."

Kanda didn't answer. He leaned against the wall, glaring icily at Lavi. "So what?"

"Yu...she said you didn't really confirm or deny anything, if you catch me. She thinks she's been rejected."

His eyes narrowed even more.

"Look, I'm not saying go and talk to her right now. I'm just looking for a straight answer…as a friend."

Kanda turned away so that his back was facing the redhead. "I don't need to tell you anything."

But Lavi was sharper than that. "You _do_ like her, don't you?"

"Shut up, Lavi."

He smiled. "Heh…you can't hide it from me."

Kanda looked at him sharply, but said nothing. There was nothing left to say. "Mind your own business, you moron." He hissed, disappearing into the darkness.

That was all Lavi needed to know.


	8. Part 8: Repression

Part Eight: Repression

**Part Eight****: Repression**

The peaceful days continued into the week, and then the next week. It almost seemed too good, like it was a trap. But still, no reports came in. Instead of calming the exorcists of the Black Order, this put them slightly on edge. Training became one of the top priorities, so that in the event of a surprise attack or a sudden _string_ of attacks, they would be ready.

"You haven't seen her at all?" Allen asked as he walked with Lavi through the woods.

Lavi shrugged. "No, and believe me, I was keeping an eye out. I think Krorykins saw her in the dining hall two days ago, but other than that, she's been like a ghost."

"Hmm…" the white haired exorcist put his hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Oh, hold on. Sayo san!"

Sayo was coming in their direction, holding her bow in her hands. "Hi Allen! Hi Lavi! What's up?"

The two older exorcists stopped. "Not too much," Lavi replied, "But we were wondering, have you or your brother seen Sayaka around lately?"

"Um yeah, she was talking to Lenalee when I left the castle. She might still be."

"Really? Where?"

Sayo turned and started walking in the other direction. "Up here, this way!"

She led Allen and Lavi up to the castle gates. True to her word, Lenalee and Sayaka were standing against the wall just near the gates, talking to each other. When they heard footsteps drawing closer, they looked up.

"Oh, hey guys." Lenalee waved to them.

Sayo grinned. "Yeah, they asked where you were, Sayaka, so I brought them back here. I hope you don't mind."

Allen's eyes widened when he looked at Sayaka. He leaned near Lavi and whispered, "Oi, doesn't she look different to you?"

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"Look at Sayaka's face."

When Lavi looked, his eyes widened too. Her face…it was almost stony. But she was trying to look happy, or at least like she was more content than she actually was on the inside.

"What's the matter with you two?" Lenalee noticed their gandering.

The two sweatdropped. "Oh, um…er, nothing. Nothing at all."

Sayaka smiled. "A penny for your thoughts, guys?"

"Well," Lavi said, "We haven't seen you around lately. We were getting a little concerned, you know?"

She looked down. "I'm fine. I just needed some time to think stuff over."

Lenalee looked back at her. "Was something wrong? You _did_ look a tad pale this morning."

"It's okay. It was just something personal."

That's what she said, but everyone could tell that something still bothered her. Even Sayo, who knew next to nothing, could suspect something was amiss. Sayaka could tell that no one really believed that she had gotten over anything, but she put up with it. She kept it up for a long time, and it seemed to sink in for everyone else.

She started to take walks around the castle halls at night, going to an outer balcony and sitting on the banister up against a column, watching the night pass over. It caused her to relax, and made her forget everything that had been clouding her mind for a time.

Sayo asked many times what was wrong, but Sayaka never gave her a straight answer. She didn't want her to worry, but knew that keeping the truth from her would only make her worry more.

_She doesn't need to worry so. Her duty as an exorcist is more important. _

Susumu most not have known where the Order was, otherwise he would've shown up to see if Sayaka was alright. That was how he was. He had said once that Sayaka was his only friend. She wondered if that was really true. She wondered how he would react when he found out that she had many other friends now.

_I hope he won't be humbled or anything by that, if I ever see him again._

Ever since she'd almost fallen off that building, she had been having nightmares where she was tumbling into never-ending blackness. Before now, falling never bothered her. It hadn't really scared her, not when she was a fairy, nor when she became human. But these bad dreams…they terrified her.

That was her other reason for wandering the halls at night besides clearing her head. She was afraid to go to sleep again.

Sayaka raised a hand to her head, leaning into her palm. _But if I don't sleep, I won't be able to concentrate on fighting…_ She was getting weary already.

"Tmp…tmp…tmp…tmp…"

Footsteps were coming closer. Sayaka sat perfectly still and listened. Those boots were too heavy for a finder, or anyone from the science department. Whoever was coming, it was an exorcist.

"Hm? What are you doing out here?"

Sayaka relaxed and tensed at the same time. "Nothing…just thinking."

Kanda came into the light. "Isn't it a little late to be sitting out here like this?"

"I don't recall hearing about a curfew or anything."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

"What about you? Taking a midnight stroll, are we?"

He stood against the column across from her. "I'm not sleeping."

"Oh? That makes two of us." She replied.

"I thought you said you were out there 'thinking'."

"Yeah, about why I'm not sleeping."

"Any luck?"

She didn't answer right away. Why was he being so civil all of a sudden? "Nightmares."

Kanda half nodded, glancing out at what lay below. Sayaka watched him, suspicious of his presence.

"You can stop staring at me any time, you know."

She blinked. "…Sorry."

"Hn…I see that Lavi and the Beansprout were only half right. You're not completely unlike yourself." He smirked.

She frowned. "I'm _fine_, thank you very much."

"If you're apologizing for no reason, you must be somewhat fine."

Sayaka's frown disappeared. "Why are you actually talking to me all of a sudden?"

Kanda looked up, seeming surprised.

She hadn't wanted to ask, but it had been fighting to come out and she couldn't hold it back anymore. Patiently, she waited for an answer.

"…" he stared at her a moment, "I don't know. I just felt like it."

When she didn't comment, he continued. "I also noticed that you have been training further away outside than anyone else."

"Look who's talking."

"You were close to the cliff's edge today."

She looked at him. "Oh, so you're watching me now? Is it payback for me watching you while you train?"

"Also, you were hitting those targets with your knives as if you were actually trying to kill them."

Her face flushed. She looked away. "So what? I was visualizing that I was in an actual battle."

"Against what?"

Sayaka was tempted to say "your face" but held her tongue as she thought of something else. "Lots of things. There are other things besides akuma out there."

Kanda turned so that he was actually facing her. "You mean things like Thrax?"

"Thrax _is_ an akuma, Kanda."

"But he wasn't made from a human, so shouldn't that categorize him as one of those 'other things'?"

"…okay, you have a point."

"So what do you think he's waiting for?"

Sayaka hesitated. "I haven't really given it much thought. Why, do you have a theory?"

Kanda stood and came a step closer. "Well, think about it. All of this down time is too good of a case scenario. Don't you agree?"

"I'm guessing it's been a while since the Order has had down time."

His eyebrows arched slightly. "The last time we did was near the end of the war."

Sayaka's eyes widened. She'd never heard anyone talk about the war before. "Really? The war with the Millennium Earl?"

Kanda nodded. "Yes, and not long after, the shit hit the fan and we were attacked by a Noah and an army of akuma."

"…I can see, then, why everyone seems to be on edge all of a sudden."

"I'm surprised that you aren't."

She sighed. "Well…I guess I've just had so much on my mind that I hadn't given the matter much thought."

He sat back down, slightly closer than before. He looked like he had something on his mind. Sayaka tried to read his face, but that, as always, proved fruitless. "Something amiss?"

"You haven't brought up anything pertaining to what you told me recently." He replied.

Her face fell. "I thought it best to avoid it. It obviously makes us both uncomfortable."

"Lavi confronted me about it."

She groaned. "I _told _him he didn't have to do anything…"

"I don't care that he confronted me," Kanda continued rather calmly, "but I'm a tad confused about one thing…why don't you act like most girls do in these situations?"

Sayaka pulled her knees in. "You mean like force myself on you? Beat you senseless with my emotions until you tell me what I want to hear?"

He gave her an odd look. "…Something like that."

She started to smile. "Well, don't expect any of that mushy crap out of me. I'm not going to force anything on you. I told you how I felt, and that's about all I can do right now."

"I see."

"Besides," she added, "This isn't such a bad thing, is it?"

"What isn't?"

"Us talking. Just kind of shooting the breeze, for lack of a better phrase."

Kanda smirked. "An odd way of looking at it, but…I admire your optimism. I expected you to be a bit more depressed."

Sayaka rolled her eyes. "Being mopey isn't my style. People respond better when you're showing signs of life, you know?"


	9. Part 9: Conversation

Part Nine: Conversation (Down Time continuing)

**Guess what? New character alert! This time it's Akesato, also from Peacemaker Kurogane. There's also the other two kunoichi that were with her, but I didn't remember their names so I made up new ones. Still don't own them or any characters from either Peacemaker Kurogane or D Grayman. Enjoy!**

**Part Nine****: Conversation (Down Time continuing)**

It went over better than Sayaka imagined. She hadn't realized until that night how much she enjoyed talking to Kanda on an intellectual level. Though he didn't show it, she suspected that he was at least content with talking to her. That was enough. It made her forget that day in the woods, or at least, push it out of her mind's way. Whenever feasible, they would meet at the same spot, usually after things had quieted down and most of the people in the Order were asleep, and would just talk about random things.

When I say talk, I mean that they got deep into issues that were of interest to them. Sayaka would often throw a wild card and ask about Marie or General Tiedoll, since Kanda knew them best. He would give limited responses, and she would build on that, usually causing them to branch off to another topic, like other things in the Order or things they'd encountered on past missions. Kanda would occasionally ask Sayaka about herself, or anything about her that piqued his curiosity.

For example, one evening…

"Who taught you to fight?" Kanda asked.

Sayaka didn't know how to answer. "Do you mean weapon-wise or with Innocence?"

"Either one."

Sayaka crossed her legs. "Well, I suppose I taught myself how to use my Innocence, since I didn't have a General to train me like you did. Of course, I didn't know right away that it was Innocence. Then weapon-wise, that was sort of in two parts."

Kanda's eyebrow rose. "Meaning?"

"I got my sword first, you see, and I figured that out rather quickly on my own. But what really came in handy, my knife-throwing and – I guess you could call them 'ninja tactics' – Susumu taught me all of that."

"Susumu?"

She hadn't spoken of Susumu since her mission with Lavi, and the only other person she told was Komui in her report. "Susumu was like me. Thrax had grown him a body, because his own was damaged so badly that he was going to die anyway. He was there long before I was made."

"What, was he your boyfriend or something?"

"No way!" she looked offended, "He was my friend!"

"Alright, alright, quit yelling."

She calmed down. "He was the only friend I had there, and then I was the only one he had."

Kanda could tell that this was going towards a touchy issue, so he quickly switched gears. "So…Thrax had been growing bodies for a while before you met him?"

"I guess so. He mentioned that he'd made a few before me, but they had 'paled in comparison to my raw talent' or whatever." She stuck her tongue out as she spoke. "What a load of crap."

"You're doubting yourself?"

"No. Him saying it just made me sick."

He smirked. "I see."

"Let's talk about something less nauseating," she said, "Like…how did you find Sayo?"

Kanda threw her a side glance. "Don't you know that story?"

She shook her head. "I was in a box then, remember?"

"Right…Marie and I were assisting the General in finding accommodators after the akuma started to reappear. The work was divided up between three of the generals because the fourth 'mysteriously disappeared' once again.

(A/N: Cross left the Order again…lolzy)

"It was harder on General Tiedoll, and we didn't have anything else to do, so we took a couple of Innocence blocks and set out."

Sayaka listened, intrigued, not only because she'd never heard the story before, but also because she'd never met any other general besides Tiedoll. "I see."

"I ended up running into Sayo in a crowded street. She found one of the Innocence blocks I was carrying and returned it to me."

A smile started to appear. "You dropped one, eh?"

He glared at her. "There was a hole in my pocket. The Innocence glowed when she picked it up, so I followed her back to her house. Then the other one started glowing when Hoshino ran out to meet us."

"Hard to beat that."

Kanda nodded. "But I could only take Sayo at first, because Hoshino was too young. He was only a year younger than her, though, so he didn't have to wait that long."

"He was mopey for about a week after you took Sayo, and kept at it until his father talked some sense into him."

"Hoshino whining is nothing new."

"I know, but that time was just ridiculous."

Sayaka paused for a moment, realizing that after this, there wasn't much left to go on. All the while, she could feel Kanda staring at her. She looked over at him. It was getting harder to read his expressions…or like, she didn't believe what she read.

He blinked. "What?"

"…What are you thinking?"

Kanda just stared at her.

She leaned in slightly. "When you stare at me…what are you thinking?"

"I'm not staring at you."

Her eyebrow rose. "Yeah, you are. You were just now, and you have a couple of times in the past."

"Then why haven't you said anything before?"

"You aren't checking me out, which is what most people are doing when they stare, so I usually don't say anything. But you have a reason, don't you?"

When he wouldn't answer, Sayaka got up and came closer. He wouldn't look at her anymore, so she looked at him instead. "Tell me."

He stood up. "I think we should call it a night."

Sayaka followed his lead. "Hey, wait a sec!" she ran up and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Kanda—"

Before she could utter another word, Kanda whirled around and snatched her by the wrist, pulling it off of his shoulder. She winced, but stopped herself from crying out.

"I said drop it."

"Why can't you tell me? I've answered all of your questions and you can't answer even one of mine!"

Kanda glared at her. "Say one more word and I'll—"

"You'll what?" she snapped, glaring right back at him, "Hit me? Go ahead, I'll hit back."

Kanda's grip on her wrist loosened, then he dropped it, stepping back. She was completely serious, practically waiting for him to strike. "No, I'm not going to hit you."

Sayaka looked away, her anger dissipating slightly. "Hey…Look, I'm just looking for a straight answer, and you haven't given me one yet. I don't mean to get angry…it's just a natural reaction…I haven't thought about this for a while now, not since that day in the woods. I've been kind of pushing it to the back of my mind."

"So for the past couple of weeks, your so called 'happiness' has been an act?"

"I suppose. I figured that dwelling on it wasn't going to make it any better, and I'm not going to go begging for an answer."

He looked at her profile. The anger was gone and it had been replaced by despair. "What answer are you looking for, then?"

"…" she chewed on her bottom lip before replying, "Am I just tolerable? Or am I more than that? Just a yes or no will suffice."

Kanda reflected back on the moment when he had told her that she was tolerable. When Sayaka had heard that, she seemed content. But now it wasn't enough. Something had changed her level of acceptance.

"No…no, you're not just tolerable."

"You're being honest, right?"

"Don't be so idiotic. I haven't lied to you yet."

Now she was biting her lip, trying to hide her impending smile. "…I'm glad…Thank you."

He turned on his heel. "Now, seriously, go to bed or something. It's getting late."

"Um…boss?"

"What do you want?"

"It's getting kinda late. Shouldn't you get some sleep?"

"I've told you, idiot, I don't sleep. Akuma never sleep."

The man shivered uncomfortably. Thrax had been bitter ever since those exorcists made off with the Innocence he'd been collecting. He didn't understand why Thrax wanted it so bad. No one would pay money for it, and they couldn't make it into anything useful. What was the point in keeping it?

Thrax looked over his shoulder, his eyes fiery-red slits. "If you're just gonna stand there, then get over here and help me."

The man snapped out of his thoughts. "Oh, s-sure boss! What should I do?"

"Keep an eye on these monitors, and don't touch anything."

"'Kay. So…what's up with these tanks, eh? I mean, these three've been in here for almost three years now."

Thrax stood in front of the center tank, looking at the woman inside. "I'm making sure that they get plenty of rest, in case I need them later."

"Right…what about that guy that helped the exorcists? You didn't detain him."

He smirked. "I have no need of him…or Sayaka. One of these days, I'm getting rid of them. Whether it's by my hands," he stepped back so he could see all three tanks and all three women, "or theirs…they'll die."

He turned back to the man. "Let the rest of the Level Ones loose. The break is over."

Just as Thrax promised, the down time ended. Reports came in from supporters around the globe, stating urgently that the akuma had reappeared in full force. This left little time to make a good plan. Komui hastily sent exorcists out on missions left and right, trying to avoid as many casualties as possible. That proved difficult, since the locations at which the akuma had appeared were very far away, and it took the exorcists a while to get there. Towns and cities were being evacuated, backing up the traffic and overcrowding the trains, buses and boats. The planes were no good, and too expensive.

The Order couldn't really prove that these sudden occurrences had anything to do with Thrax, for they seemed far too random and rushed. However, they couldn't be too sure, so they advised all exorcists departing on missions to be on constant alert. The Great Generals began interrogating Sayaka to get as much information as possible on the matter, but she couldn't tell them what they didn't already know. Needless to say, it was an exhausting time.

After the first two weeks of nonstop attacks, the akuma became less agitated and the attacks grew less and less, but still remained at a constant enough pace. Things returned to how the Order was used to them being, not nearly as bad as they were during the war with the Millennium Earl, but the same enough so that everyone got back into a pre-ordained mindset. They focused on nothing but their duties.

Apart from the lack of sleep over the past few weeks, the interrogation by the Great Generals was dragging Sayaka down like a lead weight. She was lucky that Komui wasn't allowed to send her on a mission yet, otherwise she would've crashed and ended up dead in a ditch somewhere.

(A/N: in a ditch covered in petrol on fire…Eddie Izzard reference. Lolzy)

She also wasn't allowed out of her room at night, so talking with Kanda was out of the question. Sayaka hadn't told him about it, but she assumed that he figured it out, judging by her absence at the giant window where they usually met. It was by the sheer grace of God that the Great Generals finally let her off, coming to the conclusion that there was nothing left to go on.

_Took them long enough,_ she thought bitterly, walking back to her room from Hevlaska's chambers, _why couldn't they realize that at the beginning? Some "Great Generals" they are…_

Still, she was relieved that it was over. Maybe now she could concentrate on sleeping…

"Oh, Sayaka! There you are," Lenalee said, coming up to her in the hallway, "Komui asked to see you."

Her relief was short lived. She tried to hide her disappointment as she reluctantly followed Lenalee up a set of stairs, grumbling in her mind. On the way up, Lenalee glanced over her shoulder at her.

"You don't look so hot," she said softly, "Do you feel alright?"

"I haven't had much sleep lately," Sayaka replied atonally, "and the Great Generals really gave me a hard time."

"Oh, that's right." Lenalee frowned disapprovingly, "They were trying to prod information out of you."

_Couldn't have set it better myself…_"Komui isn't sending me on a mission, is he Lenalee?"

"I'm not sure. But with you so exhausted, I really don't think he should—"

They were interrupted by a clomping pair of boots coming down the stairs, heading towards them. Kanda cut through them, looking especially irritated. Lenalee and Sayaka stopped, getting out of his way, then watched him silently. When Kanda reached the bottom, he sharply turned left and disappeared. He was heading for the underground waterway.

"Well, that's odd." Lenalee commented.

Sayaka looked at her. "What's so odd about him being pissed?"

"He was just on a mission. He got back today, I think."

After a moment, they continued up the stairs, then got to the next level and walked straight back to Komui's office. Sayaka wondered why Komui would send Kanda on another mission so suddenly.

Little did she know that she was about to get her answer.

"The mission? Oh, that's all right, Sayaka. Kanda's going instead."

Both girls sweatdropped. Lenalee quickly recomposed herself. "But brother, he was just on a mission! No wonder he looked so angry."

"Well," Komui replied meekly, seeing his sister's expression, "I saw how exhausted Sayaka looked after all of that interrogating, so I figured I'd let her off for just one mission."

Inside, Sayaka had thought that she'd feel relieved to hear that Komui was giving her a break. But instead, she felt slightly guilty. It wasn't fair to Kanda to give him her mission when he'd been busting his ass out there with the others. Sayaka had been sitting on hers, listening to the drawling of the Great Generals and thinking of her own problems. It wasn't fair.

"Komui, I'm fine, really. Let me go on this mission!"

"But I already sent him out there—"

"Then I'll go with him! Seriously, it isn't fair! Lenalee's right!" she added that last bit quickly, so she wouldn't sound desperate.

Both Lees looked at her. She was completely out of it. There was no way she could handle a mission right now. Komui stood firm. "Sayaka, I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to go. You aren't in a good condition to go out there right now."

Sayaka's body was so tired that it wouldn't allow her to argue. Defeated, she slumped onto the bench in front of Komui's desk. Lenalee rushed to her side.

"Are you alright?" she asked in a worried tone.

When no reply came, she pulled Sayaka to her feet and led her out of the office to the lounge on the second level. Komui watched, wondering if it was merely fatigue that caused Sayaka to burst out like she had.

Lenalee left Sayaka on one of the couches while she went to get some tea from the dining hall. When she returned, Sayaka had fallen asleep. Lenalee smiled, setting the tray of tea down on the table, and sitting across from her.

Thrax pulled open the door and walked down the stairs towards the basement. Even before he got down there, he could hear the tanks bubbling and the EKGs beeping. There was a thug taking down notes while looking over the status of each tank.

"How's it coming?" Thrax asked as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

The thug looked over his shoulder. "No change. They're all the same as they were when you first put 'em in here."

"Good. Take a break, I need to make some adjustments."

Without asking, the thug placed the clipboard he'd been using on the table and headed for the stairs. Once he was gone, Thrax locked the door to the basement and proceeded to take items out of the large cabinet against the wall. Three sets of ninja apparel, various weapons, and a small, locked box. He set them out on the table and then walked up to the computer the tanks were hooked up to.

There was a window open on the monitor that read STATUS: SLEEP MODE. Thrax glanced from the monitor to the tanks, a smile forming on his face. He turned to face the three women contained inside, his hand still on the mouse.

"I think you've had plenty of time to rest," he said as if they were actually listening, "I'm sorry, but now you must awaken, for I have need of your strength. It's obvious that I can't make my next move alone."

He looked back at the monitor and changed the status from SLEEP MODE to AWAKENING MODE.

The tanks began to bubble furiously, the water appearing to boil as it drained out of the tanks. The lower the water level got, the more conscious each woman seemed. Finally, after the last drop had drained from the tanks, the women began to gasp for air and move around violently, shaking their containers and cracking the glass. Thrax's smile grew wider as he pressed another button. The tanks opened and the women fell out, one by one.

"Good morning, ladies." He said.

The women looked up. "Master? Is that you?"

"Indeed."

Forgetting that they were naked and gasping for air, the women threw themselves upon Thrax, holding him tightly.

"Master, you've come for us!" said one.

"After all this time!" another added.

The third remained silent. She had not been developed with vocal cords. She was the first female Thrax grew.

"I see that your affections for me have not faded." Thrax mused, chuckling.

The women let him go, standing around him. "Of course not!" the first one replied, "We are loyal to you and will never cease to be!"

"Ah," Thrax put a hand to his head dramatically, "You have no idea what a joy it is to hear that from you."

The second woman blinked. "What do you mean, Master? Is Susumu not still your servant as well?"

"I'm afraid not."

The third woman's eyes widened, her mouth silently shaping what she would've gladly spoken, had she possessed the ability. The first woman looked outraged.

"What has the foolish man done now?" she asked.

Thrax walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled out a file. He then turned back to the women. "Get dressed first, my girls. I've put out your usual attire. There are a couple of things we need to discuss."

Unbeknownst to any of them, someone outside the window looking into the basement drew away from the glass, a look of horror spreading across his face. It couldn't be…he'd actually resurrected them? That could only mean one thing…

_Sayaka and I are being targeted again, _he thought, _and this time, Thrax means to kill us both._

He had to warn her. He had to somehow get a message through to the Order or someone connected to the Order. But how? There was no time to waste. Jumping to the roof of the opposite building, Susumu Yamazaki headed away from Thrax's hideout, unsure of where he was heading and hoping that wherever it was, Sayaka was there waiting for him.


	10. Part 10: SelfDestruction

Part Ten: Self-Destruction

**Part Ten****: Self-Destruction**

"Nh…"

Lavi looked up from the book he was reading. He grinned and nudged Lenalee, who was sitting beside him, drinking her tea. "I think she's waking up."

Lenalee looked across from them at the other couch and smiled as well. "Oh, good."

Sayaka rolled over, about to wake up anyway, narrowly avoiding falling off the couch and onto the floor. She gasped, her eyes snapping open immediately. "What?!"

Lavi and Lenalee laughed at her reaction. She blushed and sat up straight as Lenalee pushed a cup of tea towards her. She took it and brought it up to her mouth, taking a small sip.

"…It's bitter." She said.

"That's nothing new." Lavi replied, resting his book on one leg and slugging down the rest of his own cup, "Besides, what do you think sugar's for?"

Sayaka shrugged. "I dunno…I've never had tea before."

"Eh?! Never?"

"Nope. I haven't drunken much of anything except water. I wasn't sure if I could handle it."

Lenalee tipped her head to one side slightly, confused. "What do you mean, 'handle it'?"

Sayaka put her cup down on the table. "I was told that my body wasn't entirely stable, so I was advised not to go near certain foods or drinks."

"So like," Lavi leaned forward, "You've never tried anything alcoholic?"

"Nope."

"Does your not being entirely stable apply to other things as well?"

She paused for a moment, mulling that one over. Thrax hadn't really told her much past what she had just told them, so she couldn't be too sure. "Maybe…your guess is as good as mine."

"Somehow I doubt that it applies anywhere else," Lavi put in, "Because if that were the case, wouldn't injuries do more damage than normal?"

"That's possible, but I haven't gotten too many injuries so far," Sayaka held up her hand and stared at it, "So I can't be sure." There was a very faint scar where the Mugen had pierced her palm. It seemed so long ago now.

_We were bitter enemies then…_ she thought.

She didn't realize that Lavi was looking over her shoulder until she heard Lenalee giggling at her. Then she looked behind her and freaked. "Ah! When did you get there?!"

Lavi grinned. "Took you long enough. What's this mark on your hand?"

Sayaka hesitated. She hadn't really mentioned it, because there had been no point. "It, uh…happened before I became an exorcist." But Lavi kept staring. "…Kanda did it."

"He stabbed your hand?"

Lenalee came over. "That seems a bit brutish, even for Kanda. He's usually tolerant of girls."

"We were fighting at the time," Sayaka replied, feeling a grin of her own coming on, "So I guess that tolerance doesn't apply when he's _fighting_ a girl."

"Wow, I'm surprised you don't hate his guts," Lavi said, choosing his words carefully.

The ex-fairy shrugged. "He only did it out of concern for Sayo. That's the only reason that I let it slide."

Lenalee sat beside her. "It's still funny that Kanda happened upon an accommodator like Sayo before anyone else. I mean, they're so opposite."

"But Sayo's little bro was right up Yuu's alley, I bet." Lavi replied.

Sayaka shook her head. "Doubt it…Hoshino's a whiner and a self-doubter. The killer intent is there, but…" she leaned back against the back of the couch, "I dunno…he's just not as similar to his father as people like to think."

"His father?"

"Yeah…"

Suddenly, Section Leader Reever walked in. "Oh, Lenalee, there you are."

Lenalee turned to see. "Were you looking for me? Komui should've told you that I was here."

anger mark "Oh really? He conveniently left that part out."

The three exorcists sweatdropped. Although, thanks to the interruption, their conversation on Hoshino's father was quickly forgotten, much to Sayaka's relief. She was afraid of getting into that.

"Anyway, he wants to speak with Sayaka."

Thrax locked the door to the dilapidated building right before the flames started devouring it. His three dolls stood behind him, fully clothes and fully armed. The four watched as the entire building became a pillar of fire. Everyone was locked inside but them. Screams filled their ears.

"Did we really need to burn them?"

Thrax looked over his shoulder at the doll that had spoken. "They served their purpose. After that, I had no use for them."

He turned all the way around and walked through them, walking to the outskirts that lead to the highway. The dolls followed him. "We're clear on what we're doing next, right?"

The blonde doll nodded. "Yes, Master."

"I'm surprised you made another girl, Master," the brunette spoke next, "Were we not good enough?'

Thrax laughed. "No, that wasn't what I meant at all. Sayaka was an interesting experiment. I was thinking that since she was an accommodator, that maybe you three were too. That's why I had her go out and kill akuma and get the Innocence. But in the end, I'm glad you three didn't end up being like her. You might have left me like she did."

The third doll with black hair started glaring at the path ahead. She didn't like this Sayaka person one bit.

"What about Susumu?" the blonde asked.

"I don't know where he is," the akuma replied, "and he's not important at the moment. But don't worry…his time will come soon."

"I want to do him in myself."

"Oh really?"

"…You'll get your chance. But Sayaka comes first."

All of a sudden, the brunette ran ahead of the group and stopped, causing everyone to stop. "Master?"

Thrax blinked, surprised. "What is it?"

She pointed in the distance. "Is that her?"

Everyone looked in the direction she was pointing. There was a female exorcist walking through the woods, talking into a wireless golem that was flapping around in front of her. The group stood perfectly still, trying hard not to make any noise. Thrax squinted to get a good look at her.

She had semi-short, wavy brown hair. She wasn't carrying any weapons. He could hear her saying, "Yes, that's right…I think I'll need some help with this one…of course. I understand. I'll wait here for her."

A smile grew on his face. "No, that's not Sayaka. But I believe that this will be a good place to lie in wait for her. Miina," he turned to the black haired doll, "keep an eye on that exorcist. No attacking unless I say so."

Miina nodded, disappearing. Thrax looked at the two dolls remaining. "Akesato, Yurina, you two will stay with me. When Sayaka comes, you'll be the ones to bring her to me."

Akesato looked confused. "You're going to kill her, then?"

"We can't touch her is what you're saying?" Yurina added.

Thrax nodded. "Exactly. She's mine."

Two days later, Komui decided to give into Sayaka's begging (though it still confused him). Miranda had called in while Sayaka was sleeping, saying that she needed a hand in completing her mission. The Chief had given it serious thought and, after coming to the conclusion that there was no foreseeable danger, sent Sayaka to assist Miranda. It was just going to be the two of them in the woods just outside the city. The finder who had originally accompanied Miranda disappeared not long after she had called the Order.

Now, Sayaka waited on the dock of the underground waterway for a boat to arrive.

_I wonder what happened to the finder…_she thought.

There was a sound from one end of the tunnel. A boat was coming towards them, but to Sayaka's surprise, it was already occupied. Somebody was returning. Seeing who it was in the boat made her gulp, and she quickly turned her gaze away as the boat pulled up to the dock.

Kanda saw her eyes look away, but he didn't pay it any mind as he got out of the boat. In his bandaged hand he held a small box.

"Innocence fragment?" Sayaka asked without looking.

He nodded mutely.

"I see…"

"Look, if you're going to talk to me, I'd appreciate it if you looked at me."

Obediently, she looked at him. "Sorry."

Kanda's eyebrow rose. "You look exhausted."

"A bit. I'm better now, though."

"…Don't tell me Komui is sending you on a mission."

She nodded. "Yeah, what of it?"

"You're not exactly in the right condition for one."

"Miranda needed backup, so Komui sent me. I can't let someone be forced into going on a mission that was meant for me in the first place."

Turning away towards the entrance, Kanda rolled his eyes and started to walk away. "Quit acting to so selfish, it makes you look like a fool."

Sayaka was unexpectedly angered by that. She assumed that it was fatigue. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

"Komui didn't _make_ me do anything, if that's what you're referring to."

The anger faded as quickly as it came. "…You mean, you volunteered to go in my place?"

"That's right," he said with his back to her, "because you would've gotten yourself killed if you'd gone. But don't think I'm ever going to do anything like this again, because I won't. If you're going to keep acting like you're the only exorcist in the Order that can get rid of Thrax or any other akuma, then no one here is going to give you a hand if you get in too deep. That includes me."

When he had gone, the echo of his footsteps hardly outlasted the echo of his words.

Kanda walked towards Hevlaska's chamber. He hadn't been especially angry when he volunteered to take Sayaka's place on that mission. She had looked about ready to collapse when he saw her in the corridors. Sure, he had just gotten back from a mission of his own and he was tired himself, but for once he felt like giving her a break.

There was no particular reason (none that he could think of)…he just felt like it.

But after what Sayaka had just said, it made him sick to think that he'd actually done her a favor. He didn't think she'd gotten so narrow-minded about this whole Thrax thing.

"Stupid…" he muttered underneath his breath, "She's so damn stupid…"

In his hand, the box containing the Innocence was becoming dented.

**That evening…**

Just as Sayaka arrived on the scene, Miranda found the finder's dead body lying in the woods.

"How long has he been here?"

Miranda shrugged her slightly shaking shoulders. "I couldn't say…I just found him half an hour ago."

Sayaka knelt by the body. "There aren't any slash marks…it almost looks like he died in his sleep."

"You're certain? His face doesn't look like what I'd call peaceful."

Miranda was referring to the fact that though the finder's eyes were closed, his face seemed to be holding back the obvious terror that his eyes had once shown. His mouth was frowning in such away that it could almost be mistaken for a grimace.

Gently, Sayaka turned the body over. No wounds on his back and no apparent punctures in his white coat. Then, just as she was about to lay him back down, something on the back of his neck caught her eye. She squinted. "Miranda…look at this."

"What is it?"

"There's a tiny hole right here on the back of his neck," she placed her finger next to the spot, "and…oh God…"

Miranda's soft brown eyes widened as a glint of metal flashed in the pale moonlight. "…There's something still in him…"

"Hold him for a second, I'll try to get it out." Sayaka said, waiting for Miranda to hold the finder's body, and then reaching to her hair band, where her needle-like kunai were strung.

Taking one of them off her hair band, she used it to widen the tiny hole in the finder's neck so she could get at whatever was stuck inside. A trickle of blood escaped from the hole, making Miranda look away. After a bit of effort, Sayaka managed to extract what turned out to be another needle, similar to her own. She replaced hers and held up the new one in the light.

"Miranda, are you sure that no one was following you?"

"Yes…I'm certain. There's no one else out here but me."

"I'm not so sure…this couldn't have come from an akuma, and even if it did, you would've heard it."

Miranda placed the finder back on the ground and stood up. "Before we do anything, we should bury him."

Sayaka kept staring at the needle like she hadn't heard anything, but eventually replied, "I agree…but let's do it quickly."

Since the body was close to the road, the two exorcists found a spot further away, within a thicker grove of trees, and carried the dead finder over. There was no shovel, so digging the hole took longer than expected. When they finally managed to get it deep and wide enough, they placed the finder in the ground, then began covering him up. The needle was making both of them uneasy, for they both knew that there was only one place that it could have come from…a ninja…and since Sayaka was the technically the only one visible at the moment, that meant that there was another one around here somewhere.

_It sure as hell wasn't Susumu,_ Sayaka thought as she scooped handfuls of dirt into the grave, _and unless Thrax made another one in a hurry, someone just snuck up from behind and forcefully inserted it into the poor guy's spinal cord…_

"Sayaka san?"

Miranda's voice broke her thoughts. "Yes?"

"I think I heard something."

The two of them froze. Sayaka scanned the area, but didn't see any movement. A twig snapped behind her, making her jump. Miranda covered her mouth to keep herself from making a frightened squeak. Sayaka looked back at her, placing her first finger to her lips, and motioning for them to slowly get up with the other hand. Once they were standing, Sayaka dropped her hands and moved one slowly to her holster. There was definitely someone else out there with them.

There was a whizzing noise as a shuriken flew out of nowhere and hit the half-buried finder in the forehead. Sayaka threw a kunai of her own in the direction the shuriken had come from.

In response, another shuriken came out of the shadows of the trees, nearly missing Miranda, who quickly jumped to the side. She managed to escape with a slight cut on her cheek.

"Let's run!" Sayaka said, "Stay near me!"

Now the attacks became more frequent. There was no way to create a shield while they were running, so Sayaka had to catch each blade that came close to hitting either of them. They didn't know where they were going, but eventually they knew they had to stop and find some way to draw their enemy out into the open.

_It's definitely another ninja…could Thrax have made another one in such little time?_

Finally, the two exorcists reached a large clearing in the woods. Immediately, they stood back to back. This was going to be difficult since Miranda's anti-akuma weapon was only for defense, and there now appeared to be more than one attacker.

"I think we might have multiple enemies, Miranda," Sayaka said aloud, "Can your Time Record keep you safe?"

"What about you?" Miranda replied, looking over her shoulder fearfully, "You need to be safe too! I can activate my barrier around us both, and you can still attack from the inside!"

"Alright…but if you start to get tired, let me know and I'll back you up with my shield."

Miranda's hand moved to her shoulder where her Time Record was and then moved it swiftly along the trail that went down her arm to her hand. "Innocence…activate!"

A dome-shaped barrier surrounded both exorcists, covered in ticking clock shapes. From the inside, Sayaka could see what was going on around them. That meant that the enemies probably wouldn't be able to see inside from out there.

"Their weapons can't get through this, right?"

"I'm not sure," Miranda replied, "Usually my Time Record keeps out akuma and their attacks, but these are human weapons."

"We'll just have to be careful, then."

They got their answer quickly as another wave of kunai and shuriken came flying towards them from the sky. Sayaka took out her sword and used it to deflect the ones that actually came close enough to come through the barrier, but not break it.

"Don't move, Miranda!"

She stood completely still as Sayaka ran around her inside the barrier. If she got hit, it would weaken the Time Record. Suddenly, she looked up to see a black shape in the sky above them.

"Sayaka san, up there!" she cried, pointing.

A figure in shinobi attire descended upon them at great speed, aiming to land on the top of the dome. Sayaka automatically threw a kunai in their direction to knock them off course. But as that figure was deflected, another appeared on the left. The second figure tried to run inside the dome, but was repelled, knocking them onto the ground. That gave Sayaka time to survey their enemy.

To her great surprise, not only was it a human shinobi, but a woman with black hair. She hadn't made a sound when she hit the ground, but merely glared at Sayaka as she pulled herself back up. The first figure, also female, came to her companion's side, this one with brown hair.

"Well, it seems like there's no question as to which one of you is Sayaka," she said.

"Who are you? How do you know who I am?" Sayaka asked in reply.

The woman smiled. "The name's Yurina. My mute companion here is Miina."

A third voice answered the second question. "As for how we know you, let's just say that we're well informed."

Sayaka looked behind her to see a third, blonde woman standing on the other side, looking right at her past Miranda.

"I'm Akesato," she added, smiling.

Miranda backed up a couple of steps, her hands clenched together over her heart. Sayaka got closer to her, hand clenched tightly around her sword's handle.

"So this is what the Innocence can do?" Akesato walked around the dome towards the other two, looking fascinated, "It can keep us out, but our weapons can still penetrate?"

Yurina spoke to her, "I think if we kill the taller one, the dome will go away."

Sayaka pointed her sword at her. "You so much as motion to hurt Miranda, and I'll run you through."

"Ooh, she's got a nasty mouth on her, doesn't she?" Akesato laughed, "Well then, come out here, and we'll have no reason to hurt your friend. All we want is you."

"Why do you want me? I don't even know you."

"But _we_ know _you_, and that is enough," Yurina replied as Miina produced a long chain from thin air, "Now either you come out on your own, or we'll drag you out."

But Sayaka wouldn't move. "I'm not coming within an inch of you until you tell me how you know me and what exactly you want."

Miina's eyes slanted into irritated slits. She swung the chain around her head and threw it, wrapping it around Sayaka's wrist, and began to pull. But Sayaka saw it coming and acted accordingly, taking her sword and stabbing it into the chain.

"Hah! Our chains are stronger than that!"

Sayaka smiled at them. "But my Innocence is stronger than your chain!"

Her blade was surrounded by the familiar green aura as she spoke. Then she performed a horizontal slice, breaking the chain to pieces. Miina drew back in surprise. Yurina gaped at her.

"So it's true…it's in your hands, isn't it?!" she shrieked.

Sayaka's would-be reply was cut off by a scream from Miranda. She whirled around to see that Akesato had her by the neck with her own chain. She was dragging her closer to the edge of the dome, which was beginning to faze in and out of existence. Miranda gasped, trying to keep the Time Record activated.

"Now, now, little exorcist," Akesato hissed, "don't forget, if this woman goes, the barrier goes with her."

"Let her go! Miranda's not a part of this!"

"Oh, but she is now. You decided that when you refused to obey."

The former fairy gritted her teeth. This was getting them nowhere fast. At this point, these three shinobi had the upper hand. Taking these three on by herself was the only way to keep Miranda out of danger.

"Fine, fine! I'll come out of here if you let Miranda go." She said.

Miranda gasped in protest. Akesato grinned, satisfied. "That's more like it. Resheathe your sword and go towards Yurina and Miina. Then I'll release her."

She complied, reluctantly, still not sure of what to do from there. She then turned on her heel and walked slowly out of the barrier. Once she was outside, Miranda was released, dropping to her knees and gasping for breath. Akesato came around to Yurina and Miina.

"There. Now come with us."

But Sayaka didn't move. "You haven't told me what this is all about yet."

"Oh? The little traitor hasn't figured it out yet?"

"'Traitor'?"

"You have something in common with us," Yurina replied.

"And that is…?"

Akesato leaned near her and whispered, "We were all created by the same person."

It didn't take long for Sayaka to realize who they were talking about. "But how…how could he have made you three so quickly? There's no way!" her voice shook along with her body.

Yurina threw her head back and laughed. "The girl thinks she's older than we are!"

"What a fool!" Akesato added, "I'm surprised Susumu never told you! And here I thought he'd taught you everything!"

Sayaka's mouth dropped open. Susumu knew about this and never told her? How could this be? Why would he keep something so important from her?

If Thrax had made these three along with Susumu, then where had they been all this time? There appearance could only have meant one thing…that Thrax was serious now. Taking back the Innocence from him was the last straw.

Without thinking, Sayaka did a quick draw and lashed out at the three women, who were conveniently surrounding her in a half circle. The women jumped out of the way, widening their half circle. Then they lunged at Sayaka, grabbing her arms and her weapons.

"S-Sayaka san!" Miranda shouted, starting to come forward, when a kunai landed at her feet. She looked to see Miina glowering at her.

"Miranda, run!" Sayaka screamed, "Run and get help!"

But the elder exorcist's body trembled with terror and she could not will herself to move. She watched as Sayaka struggled with the three women, kicking and flailing about wildly in an attempt to free herself.

The women got this foreboding gleam in their eyes as they stared down at Sayaka, taking out a kunai each and slashing Sayaka across the face. Akesato tied her arms behind her back as Yurina forced a burlap bag over Sayaka's head. Then Miina took the thrashing exorcist and threw her over her shoulder.

As the three women began to retreat, Sayaka made one last attempt to call out to Miranda. "Miranda, please! Get help! Hurry!"

She screamed as they disappeared into thin air, leaving Miranda all by herself with Sayaka's weapons.

All she could do was run to the nearest telephone, which was back in the city, and call the Order for backup. She had no choice but to run.

Susumu heard the scream even before he reached the highway. He saw four black shapes leaping into the air and vanishing before his eyes. Even though he knew that it was too late, he pushed his legs to go faster.

As he crossed the asphalt and started through the trees, he could sense that someone was coming towards him. He skidded to a stop, taking a kunai from his belt and holding it in front of him, waiting. Perhaps the dolls were coming this way.

He didn't expect Miranda to show up.

"Oh!" Miranda jumped back, tripping and falling to the ground, raising her hands up in front of her face in fear.

Susumu lowered the kunai. "Another exorcist?"

"Please!" she cried.

"I'm not an enemy," he replied, "But if you're here, that means that you were with Sayaka. Why didn't you stop them?"

"I don't have an offensive weapon!" she replied, "Sayaka told me to get help! Please, I need to get to a phone!"

"Your golem isn't wireless?"

"No…who are you? You're not with them?"

Susumu shook his head. "I'm a friend of Sayaka's. I can take you to a phone, if that's what you wish. But first, tell me, do you know where they are taking her?"

Miranda shook her head furiously, "I couldn't tell…they disappeared so fast! Oh please, sir, help me!"

He pulled the exorcist off the ground and picked her up bridal-style. "Hold on. I know where there's a phone."

BRRRRRING…BRRRRRRRRING…

Komui lay down his pen and picked up the telephone. "Yes?"

The force of the voice on the other end made him pull back the phone from his ear. When the yelling finally stopped, he brought it back and replied, "Miranda, calm down. Tell me again, slowly. What's the situation?"

"_Komui, send help! Please, Sayaka's been taken by the enemy! I think they're going to take her to Thrax! He may try to kill her!"_

The chief nearly dropped the phone in shock. He hadn't seen anything like this coming. He looked up to see Reever entering the office.

"Section Leader Reever, what exorcists are available in the Order right now?" he asked without hesitation.

Reever shut the door. "Er…Lenalee, Lavi, and Allen, I think…they're the ones who aren't busy with a General at the moment—"

"Go get Lavi and send him to Miranda's location immediately! The enemy's taken Sayaka captive!" he then said into the phone, "Miranda, go back to where you were before. We're sending Lavi your way."

Both men felt weight in the pits of their stomachs.

Finally, they had stopped moving. Sayaka felt Miina put her back on the ground. Her feet buckled underneath her and she fell to the ground in a heap. She heard the three dolls laughing at her. Then she heard a voice that filled her with dread.

"Ah, finally. Good work, ladies." Thrax said.

Was he coming towards her? It felt like he was coming closer. She wished they would take the damn bag off.

"Sounded like you put up quite a fight out there, baby," his voice was much closer now, "and I understand that Susumu didn't tell you about the lovely ladies that were created right along with him."

She couldn't think of anything else to say. "H-His sisters or something?"

Thrax chuckled. "No, not exactly. But I had created them much earlier, long before I even met you."

"Why?"

"I was testing my newfound abilities. However, I decided that, for a time, I would put them to sleep until I had a more meaningful use for them…this being a good example."

Sayaka couldn't believe he was saying that right in front of them. "And you three are okay with that?"

To her right, Akesato snickered. "Our only purpose is to serve Thrax. We willingly underwent hibernation."

"Yes, she's right." Yurina (on the left) agreed, "We're not as ungrateful as you turned out to be."

Thrax pulled Sayaka up by the front of her jacket so that she was standing. "You do realize why you're here now, don't you?"

Sayaka didn't answer. She didn't have to, because she knew he'd answer for her.

"First you abandon me, and then you steal from me. You dug your own grave here, baby, and no one's going to get you out. Not me, not Susumu, and certainly not your boyfriend."

He didn't know that Kanda was still alive. Sayaka felt a smile coming on and didn't try to stop it, since Thrax couldn't see it anyway. But it quickly faded when she felt Thrax sliding two of his fingers underneath the bag to grasp her face.

Thrax pulled her so that his face was mere inches away from hers. "I told you that I could easily unmake you. I already made you suffer when I infected your boyfriend, but apparently it wasn't enough. It seems that killing you is my only option."

"Kanda…isn't dead…"

His eyes widened. "What? What did you say?"

"He lived. What's more, he's not infected anymore. You don't know as much about exorcists as you think you do." She knew she wasn't making this easier on herself, but she didn't care. She wanted to rub it in his face.

Thrax knew it, he knew what she was doing. It just made him angry. He shoved her backward and slashed her side. The dolls advanced forward, thinking that it was their turn next, but Thrax gestured for them to stay back. Sayaka was too surprised to scream. Instead, she stumbled backward, wincing at the sudden rush of pain to her right side.

"H-Heh…that's it? W-Was that your only—" she started to say. Thrax cut her off by delivering another blow to her left side.

"You shouldn't interrupt me," he growled, "And no, that _wasn't _it. I'm going to kill you _nice and slow_."

He didn't pause and give her another chance to speak again. Instead, he went into a continuous streak of slashing her. Sayaka couldn't see anything, so there was no way to dodge. At one point, her bonds were cut, but by then it didn't matter. Her weapons were gone and she had barely the strength to stand, let alone activate her Innocence. All she could do was scream until her throat went hoarse. When the blows finally stopped coming, it seemed like hours had passed. Maybe they had, for all she knew. Her legs gave out and she collapsed against the trunk of a tree.

The dolls came closer, still staying behind Thrax, who was also advancing on Sayaka. He knew she wasn't dead yet. She may have been rapidly losing her entire body's worth of blood, but she wasn't as close to death as he would've liked.

"Still alive, then, baby?"

Sayaka didn't answer. She couldn't even hear Thrax's voice. Someone else's voice was filling her ears and echoing in her mind.

_**No one here is going to give you a hand if you get in too deep.**_

_Don't say that…_she thought, _please…don't talk like that…_

_**That includes me.**_

_I've been so obsessed with my own problems…I didn't realize that I wasn't the only one that was being affected by what Thrax had been doing…I realize that now. So please don't say things like that…please help me…_

Kanda hadn't been lying. He hadn't made a word of that up. She didn't have to be a mind-reader to know that. But even so, knowing that pained her. In a way, he was probably right. It wasn't helping her right now. She was begging for someone to show up.

"Are you listening, Sayaka? 'Cause it looks to me like you're off somewhere else."

Thrax's voice became audible. Sayaka started to cry.

Akesato laughed. "How cute."

"Is she crying, Master?" Yurina asked, "How can she cry at a time like this?"

"Because," Thrax replied, "She knows that she's done for."

He knelt down in front of her and lifted the front of the bag slightly so he could see the tears running down her face. They glistened in the moonlight, disappearing into her shadow. She was biting her lower lip, her teeth breaking the skin so that small drops of blood appeared. Thrax smiled, swiping the blood off of her face and licking it off his finger.

"It's too bad…you always did look especially cute when you cried." He whispered.

Suddenly, he looked to see Sayaka's hands moving slowly up to his face. He felt the wetness of the blood as they touched him. Thinking nothing of it, he snickered again. Her hands started to glow green and she mouthed something, her voice going hoarse. When Thrax had pieced together what she had said, he let out a shrill shriek…a true akuma shriek…right before his head exploded.

"Innocence…activate!"

The three dolls cried out, covering their faces as blood, ash, and quite possibly eyeballs, flew into the air.

"Master!!"

When the ash blew away, Sayaka's hands dropped to her sides, splashing in a pool that had formed all around her. Had she really bled that much already?

Akesato snarled. "You little bitch! How dare you kill him?!"

Miina took a kunai out and went right up to Sayaka, kneeling down and dragging the blade through her flesh, just below her collarbone. Sayaka couldn't scream, so instead she let out gasps and whimpers.

Yurina put a hand on Miina's shoulder. "That's enough."

"Enough? Are you insane?" Akesato turned sharply on her.

"Master's dead…and soon enough, she will be too. Let's retreat….and bury his remains."

Those were the last words Sayaka heard before going unconscious.

"Here! They went this way!" Susumu yelled.

Lavi and Miranda were behind him, doing their best to keep up. Even for a spy, he was very quick on his feet.

"How can you tell?" Lavi called up to him.

"Can't you smell it by now?"

Miranda looked at him, "Smell what?"

"The scent of blood. Human blood."

All of a sudden, they could smell blood. It made them feel uneasy. Why was it so strong? Had Sayaka killed them all? A metallic, rusty smell was mixed in with the blood scent.

Lavi coughed. "There's an akuma there too…or at least, there was…"

Suddenly, Susumu stopped dead in his tracks at the entrance to the clearing. Lavi halted, grabbing Miranda before she crashed into him. The smell was overwhelming now.

"Susumu? What's wro—" the words caught in Lavi's throat before he could speak.

Miranda covered her mouth with her hands. "Oh my god…oh no…!"

A female body was slumped against a tree, in a pool of blood. A ring of ash lay at her feet where an akuma had been. A bloody kunai lay on the grass, dripping crimson onto the ground. Her coat was shredded. The two exorcists and the former spy were almost afraid to get closer. Lavi willed himself to go over and see if she was still alive. Miranda and Susumu followed behind him, standing a few feet back to give him room.

Lavi got down on one knee, ignoring the fact that his knee was now soaked in blood, and placed two fingers on her neck to check her pulse. He had to search around for it.

"Lavi…?" Miranda spoke softly.

After a moment, he looked over his shoulder. "Found it. It's pretty weak, but there."

Susumu removed his outer coat and went over to Lavi's other side. "If you lift her up, I can wrap this around her."

"Yeah…okay."

Carefully, Lavi moved Sayaka forward by her shoulders and nearly dropped her when he felt her shudder. Quickly, Susumu wrapped the coat around her and scooped her into his arms, standing up. Lavi and Miranda followed suit, then all three of them started walking slowly back to the city, where a void (portal) was waiting to send them immediately back to the Order.

The two exorcists wondered if Susumu was going to come back to the Order with them. It would constitute a problem, since the Order never allowed outsiders in. Once they reached the void, Susumu turned to Lavi.

"Here, take her back to the Order." He said.

"You're not coming with us?" Miranda asked.

"I have a feeling I won't get past the front gates if I do," he replied, smiling sadly, "and besides, those three dolls might still be around here somewhere."

Lavi took Sayaka from him. "We won't let her die, I promise."

Susumu nodded. "I have a feeling she'll live. She's always been pretty stubborn."

With that said, he turned, leapt into the air, then disappeared. Lavi stared at the space where he'd been standing. "Stubborn…"

"Eh?"

"Oh, nothing. Let's hurry and get back."


	11. Part 11: General's Decision

Warning: Slight spoiler alert for later chapters in D Grayman

**Warning: Slight spoiler alert for later chapters in D Grayman! Read at your own discretion! Final chapter, everyone!!**

**Part Eleven****: General's Decision**

The infirmary didn't allow any visitors in for the next couple of weeks, going on a month and a half. The only people who knew what went on in there were the Head Nurse and nurses working with her, Bookman, since he was in charge of patching Sayaka up, and Komui. This time, no rumors spread.

Even though they couldn't get inside, would-be visitors waited outside for news. Most of the time, it was Miranda, Lavi and Allen. Lenalee and Sayo couldn't stand out there without getting upset, and Hoshino usually stayed with Sayo to make sure she didn't get _too_ upset.

One day, after waiting outside for a couple of hours, Bookman sidled out of the door to the infirmary. Right before he closed the door, they could hear frantic shouts from the nurses and snatches of screaming.

"Oi, Gramps, what's going on in there?" Lavi asked, eye wide.

Bookman came up to them. "We were trying to put her on oxygen after stitching up her wounds. She became hysterical when a nurse was putting the mask over her face."

"Hysterical?" Miranda shivered.

"Yes…mostly screams, not really any specific words, but she wouldn't let the nurses anywhere near her."

The two exorcists looked at each other worriedly. What had happened to Sayaka to make her act this way? What had Thrax and his dolls done to her?

"Is it true that the akuma called Thrax is gone?" Bookman asked.

Lavi shrugged. "There were ashes on the ground, but there's no way to confirm whether or not they were Thrax's until Sayaka is better."

"But Bookman, what about Sayaka san's wounds? Will they heal?" Miranda asked next.

There was a long pause before an answer surfaced. "…The smaller cuts will heal in time, but as for these slash marks and the cut on her chest, those will most likely remain as scars."

Lavi slumped against the wall, sitting onto the floor. He sighed heavily and pulled the headband off his head, letting his hair fall around his face. "It was a real scare out there, Gramps…I mean, the way she was laying against that tree and all…I was afraid that she was going to die."

Miranda buried her head in her knees, "I shouldn't have left her…If only I had stayed, then maybe she wouldn't have gotten hurt…"

The redhead was about to say something to her, but stopped when he heard approaching footsteps. Everyone was surprised to see Hoshino coming towards them. No doubt he'd heard what Miranda had said, for he went right up to her, getting down at her side and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Please don't blame yourself, Miranda," he said quietly, "No one else blames you. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

The young woman looked up, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. "But…but Hoshino kun, your sister…"

Hoshino smiled. "See, the way Ne chan and I see it, you and Lavi are the reason Sayaka's still living. If you hadn't come when you did, it might've been too late."

"He's right, Miranda," Bookman nodded in agreement, "There is no need to fret. There is no doubt that Sayaka will live."

"Yeah, c'mon Miranda," Lavi stood and pulled her to her feet, "Let's go get some grub. We've been here practically all afternoon. We can tell Allen and Lenalee the news."

She sniffed, wiping the tears from her eyes. "O-Okay, you're right."

Inside the infirmary, the nurses had managed to sedate Sayaka so they could get the oxygen mask on. She was now sleeping, her eyes lidded heavily, as if they were made of lead. No one seemed to notice that though she was out cold, her body still trembled slightly, shivering almost.

"So she will pull through, Bookman?" Komui asked later in his office.

The old man nodded. "Yes, though she may have trouble getting around once she's released. The damage was done mainly to her lower half and abdominal area."

Komui looked to the Head Nurse, who had also come to report. "And what is her current condition?"

"She's been under sedation for a few hours now. I believe she will sleep through tomorrow, if we're lucky."

"… 'Lucky?'"

"This wasn't the first time she'd become hysterical. Once before, she'd tried to get up and run out of the infirmary. It took all of the nurses to get her back to the bed."

The Chief sat down, hand to his chin thoughtfully. "Is it possible that these recent events have given her nightmares of some sort?"

"I would not doubt it." Bookman answered.

"…How long until she can go back to her normal routine, would you say?"

"I'd give it a few more months at most, Chief."

"Ah…wouldn't you know it?" a voice from behind said, "You've answered my first question, Bookman."

General Tiedoll entered the office, followed by Kanda, Marie and Chaoji. The Head Nurse stepped aside to let them pass, then nodded to Komui and took her leave.

"General," Komui stood and half-bowed, "This has something to do with what you'd wanted to speak to me about earlier?"

Tiedoll nodded. "Indeed. I've brought my disciples along to help with this decision."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"I would request that I take Sayaka as my next disciple, once she is better."

Komui's eyes widened. He looked around the room to see that no one else had seen this coming either. Tiedoll hadn't taken another disciple since Chaoji, and that was near the end of the war.

Tiedoll could sense that Komui was confused and began to explain, "I understand your reactions, everyone. In fact, I was sort of expecting it. But I do have a good reason.

"After our first encounter with Thrax, I noticed that, during the battle with Baxter, she was mainly using the Level One attack of her Innocence. But right before Thrax escaped, I am told," he nodded at Kanda, "that she used a completely different technique out of desperation. I am under the impression that she may have used this in her last mission to save herself."

Kanda gave the General a side-glance. He had never told the General about that. Sayaka must have mentioned it to the Great Generals during her interrogation, and they in turn must have passed it to Tiedoll. He could barely remember how they'd gotten out of that mess. But she must have…it must have been burned into her memory…along what had just happened.

"So, my point is that she needs to be trained in order to bring out the full potential of her Innocence." Tiedoll concluded.

Komui rested his chin on his hands. "But General, we have been suspecting that though Sayaka is a parasite-type, she is not the same as Allen or Krory."

"You're referring to the fact that she wasn't human to begin with?" Marie asked.

"Yes, exactly. This may be as far as her synchronization with her Innocence will go."

"I understand," Tiedoll nodded, "but, with all due respect, I would like to try, and see just how far she can get."

It took a lot of explaining to finally convince Komui to speak to the Great Generals about this. Tiedoll's disciples left the office about halfway through, gradually dispersing. Chaoji ran off to meet up with Allen and Lavi. That left Marie and Kanda.

"Do you know anything about what happened to her?" Marie asked.

Kanda shook his head. "They're keeping their mouths shut for once."

"I heard that she may have actually defeated that akuma."

"Hmph…well, she got what she wanted then, didn't she?"

Kanda still hadn't forgotten about what Sayaka had said prior to her last mission. It still pissed him off, but not quite as much. He'd had a while to let it blow over. Once they'd reached the third level, Marie disappeared to his living quarters. Kanda continued onward, not really feeling like meditating. There was just too much on his mind. Where had Marie heard that Sayaka might have killed Thrax?

Lavi might have mentioned it…he and Marie did talk on occasion. But how would Lavi know? He wasn't there to see it.

Kanda groaned. He'd begun thinking too much into this to the point where he just had to know the truth.

_This must be how Sayaka felt when I was the one in critical condition…_

He figured that he should've considered himself lucky that he couldn't remember that time very much. From the looks of it, everyone who did either had terrible nightmares or began feeling uneasy when the subject was brought up.

Before he knew it, he was standing right outside of the infirmary. The door was shut, but not locked, so he went inside. He hadn't expected her to be awake, and he was right. She was still on oxygen, her eyes closed. He stood near the side of the bed, looking down at her.

Almost her entire body was bandaged up. On her face, there were small cuts, most likely from branches, with small bits of medical tape on them, nothing to cover with an entire patch. Her arms were bandaged from just below the shoulder to the wrist. Her lower half was the most heavily bandaged of all. Kanda could tell that the nurses put on at least three or four layers of bandages. Then a patch on her chest caught her eye. It was partly covered by the shirt she was wearing, but nonetheless, the patch seemed oddly out of place. He didn't realize that his hand had been going for the patch until someone said his name.

"Yuu?"

His _first _name, no less. "What?" he withdrew his hand quickly.

Lavi came up behind him. "I didn't think they were allowing visitors yet."

"The door was open, so I came in." Kanda replied simply.

The redhead shrugged. "Well, no one's shoving us out, so…"

"What's this patch, here?"

"Eh?"

"Right there. What is that patch covering?" he pointed.

Lavi looked to see what he was referring to. Then he blinked, looking back up as he replied, "It looked like someone had tried to drag a blade or something through her skin, like a knife or something."

"…Do you know if she actually killed Thrax or not?"

That question caught him off guard. It took him a moment to answer. "Well, there were some ashes near where she was laying, but there wasn't a way to confirm or deny anything. The only thing I'm sure of is that those _were_ akuma ashes."

While they were talking, they weren't facing the bed. Momentarily, Sayaka's eyes fluttered, then slowly opened, taking in her surroundings. She thought she heard voices, and when she saw two people standing beside her bed, her thought was confirmed. They hadn't noticed that she'd woken up. It was okay…she didn't want them to notice; she couldn't find the strength to talk, anyway.

_What are they talking about?_

"Do you think she's gonna be interrogated again when she's better?" Lavi asked.

Kanda shrugged. "I don't know. It seems stupid to go any further than the Thrax bit."

Sayaka closed her eyes again and acted asleep when Kanda turned around. But she kept listening.

"How bad were the injuries?"

Lavi's face fell. "Gramps says that most of them are going to leave scars. Mainly," he pointed, "the big slash marks on her lower half. The cuts and whatnot, those'll go away."

"Slash marks?"

"Actually, they looked like claw marks to me."

Sayaka resisted the urge to shudder. Lavi's teeth chattered, proving that he didn't resist. After a few minutes, Sayaka stopped listening and fell asleep again. The next time she woke up, it was dark outside. She saw the Head Nurse closing the infirmary door for the night on her way out. Once she was sure that she'd gone, Sayaka lifted a hand to her face, feeling for the oxygen mask. It had been removed.

_Okay, I'm off the tank,_ she thought, _now let's see if I can sit up…_

Using her arms to steady herself, she slowly rose up from the bed. She winced in pain, but kept rising until she was somewhat straight. Then she scooted backward and rested against the headboard. She sighed loudly, feeling like she'd just done sit-ups. The room was extremely stuffy. There was a window at the other end of the room. If she could get herself to stand, maybe she could make it over there and open it.

Sayaka waited a couple of seconds, then started to move her legs over the edge of the bed. She moved very slowly, not wanting to reopen anything. Standing surprisingly didn't hurt as much as sitting up. Walking was a bit tougher though, for at least one slash had been close to her hip. It felt like miles before she finally reached the window.

_It would be so typical if the window's locked right now,_ she thought bitterly.

To her relief, the window opened effortlessly and a cool wind swept by her. There was a screen on the outside, but it didn't matter. Sayaka leaned on the windowsill and just stared out into the night sky. The infirmary was on the fourth level, so there wasn't much to see other than sky. If you looked down, you saw nothing but mist.

Her last conversation with Kanda had been the only thing on her mind lately. Though painful as it was, it helped her push the memories of what had happened to her out of her thoughts, temporarily. She couldn't help but wonder, though, if the Order really would investigate into the matter. She hoped not. The last thing she wanted to do was recount it.

_**I can't let someone be forced into going on a mission that was meant for me in the first place…**_

"Did I really say that?" she whispered, hardly believing her ears.

No wonder Kanda had gotten so angry. Sayaka had come to see over time that his sudden bursts of anger (usually directed at Allen or Lavi) were not nearly as frightening as the times when the anger is so subtle, yet obviously powerful, like he had been at that moment.

_I feel so stupid now,_ she thought miserably, _Christ…I almost got myself killed because of it…_

It finally dawned on her how close to death she had just been. This epiphany enveloped everything, so she didn't hear when someone came into the infirmary, didn't know that they were even there, until…

"You're crying."

Sayaka looked to her side, startled. "K-Kanda…?"

His hair was down and he was wearing that weird sweater thing. She looked away again, wanting to hide her tears even though he'd already seen them. She heard him sigh, then stuff a tissue into her hand.

"I already knew you were crying when I walked in the room," he said.

She wiped the tears off her face and balled up the tissue in her hand. "I know. It's just the last thing I'd want you to see."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Don't most people hide their faces when they start crying in front of people?"

"No, I meant why did you start in the first place?"

Sayaka hesitated, slowly turning so that her back was facing the window. "…I was thinking a lot about what you said the last time I talked to you."

Kanda looked at her but said nothing.

"I feel really stupid…I just now realized how close I'd come to dying, and it was because I was so fixated on the idea that I was the one who was supposed to kill Thrax…"

"And you had to come _this close_," he indicated with his hand, "to death to figure that out."

Harsh, but true. "I kept hearing it in my head while I got pummeled…and I was so scared that no one was going to come…that I was going to die out there alone, like you said—"

Kanda cut her off sharply. "I never said you were going to die, I was only saying that no one was going to help you to knock some sense into you. But apparently, Thrax ended up being the one to do that."

Sayaka took in a shaky breath, trying to swallow an oncoming sob, "I'm sorry that I was so selfish…"

"That's another thing. Quit apologizing for every damn thing."

She looked at him, surprised. "But—"

"But nothing. You don't need to say you're sorry for this, because there's nothing to be sorry for. You've already learned your lesson, maybe in a crueler way than one would've guessed, but whatever."

A long silence settled in. They didn't look at each other, but focused on something else in the room: the floor, the ceiling, etc. Someone walked past the infirmary in the hall, not noticing that half the lights were still on for some reason.

"So, why are you up and walking around, anyway?" Kanda asked, "Shouldn't you be sedated or something?"

"It was so stuffy in here, I had to get some air or I was going to go nuts. Besides, if I'm standing, it doesn't hurt too much."

She saw that he was raising his eyebrows at her. "Okay…if I move really slowly, it doesn't hurt."

"Moron."

"Well, what about you?" she looked right at him, "What are you doing in the infirmary in the middle of the night?"

The dark haired exorcist crossed his arms. "If you were awake, I was going to pass along a message to you from the General."

Her eyes widened. "General Tiedoll, you mean?"

"Yeah…he wants to take you as his next disciple once you get better."

"Disciple? Why?"

"He thinks you could get more out of your Innocence if you work at it. Komui's not so sure, since you weren't originally a human, but the General seems determined to prove him wrong."

_Wow…_Sayaka felt her face go a little red, "I see…well, I'll do it if he wants me to."

"It's not really optional," Kanda replied, "And the General has to get the approval of the Great Generals first."

"Always a catch."

"Well, usually, if the General finds you, then you're automatically his disciple. But in your case, it's different."

"But what about Sayo and Hoshino? They're not anyone's disciple, well not a General, anyway." Sayaka argued.

"Probably because I found them while helping the General find accommodators. Also, technically, Sayo found _you_, and she's nowhere near being old enough for a disciple."

She nodded. "I guess I understand."

"Good."

Sayaka crumpled the tissue up even more and tossed it into the wastebasket near the wall.

"Do your wounds hurt at all?"

"Hm? Oh, no. Not really. Hey…where are Sayo and Hoshino, anyway?"

"Komui gave them time off. They probably went back to their parents' house. Sayo was getting a bit hysterical herself."

Sayaka smiled a little. If they'd gone home, then they were going to be okay. Their mother usually made things better. "Are you planning on spending the night down here or what?"

Kanda glanced at the clock. "Don't be dumb…it's getting late, anyway."

"…Will you stay a little longer?"

She was looking at him now.

"Maybe. What's in it for me?"

Her face flushed immediately, but that didn't make her back down. "I don't know…what do you want?"

"For you to show a little backbone in your so-called 'feelings' for me." He replied bluntly.

Sayaka knew what he meant, and it was making her face burn. She convinced herself that no one was going to come in to check on her for another four hours and practically everyone was asleep, and started to walk toward Kanda. He stood completely still, hands at his sides. Then, as soon as she was close enough, she closed her eyes and pressed her mouth against his. No sooner had she done so did she feel Kanda hold her so she couldn't pull away. One hand rested on her shoulder, the other on the back of her head, as he deepened the kiss. Sayaka started to put her arms around his neck, but could only manage to get them as close as his shoulders, otherwise the stretching pulled at her abdominal wounds.

The kiss broke after a moment and they stood there, foreheads pressed together. Kanda took one hand and ran the tips of his fingers across the small scratches on Sayaka's face.

"You're crying again, you know." He said quietly.

"I'm not sad."

He smirked. "It's about time you made a move. I was getting tired of waiting."

**THE END**

**(to be continued)**

**That was the last chapter! What did you think? Please review! I appreciate all of the comments and favoriting! Thank you so much! But don't fear, a sequel will be emerging in the near future! **

**Thanks again and see you soon!**

**Nakia the Silent One **


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